A Turian's Duty
by ShadowWolf329
Summary: The story of a marine who is reincarnated into the world of Mass Effect as a Turian, read as he attempts to change the future of the Galaxy. What will change, who will change and will the Galaxy be completely flipped on it's head from canon.
1. A New World

Where am I? Why can't I stand up? I look down at my hands and feet only seeing clawed hands unable to help as I panic for a moment in response. I pant softly as I see a figure tower over me unable to see its face due to the bright light behind it but I can spot a few attributes. I squirm as it picks me up, the bright light disappearing and allowing me to see its face. Seeing not a human but a Turian with red stripes painted along the sides of its face and there is only one thing I can think which is, crap I'm in Mass Effect.

This is terrifying due to the fact that just what felt like a few hours ago I was a human with my Marine company. We were in a convoy in Syria escorting some VIP the General believed had some useful information on some of the opposing forces in the country. I had joined my battalion again even after being promoted to a Captain so I'm sure now that there was more to this VIP than what we were told. However, it seems we were too late to understand this as we were suddenly ambushed once one of our vehicles ran over an unnoticed mine which killed everyone in the vehicle. Before we could even get a chance to react to the explosion, we were fired upon in a terrain with limited cover, many of us were cut down as we tried to fire back, I managed to grab one of my comrades and pull him down behind a piece of cover I found.

We fired back as best we could, but we were being overrun and had no chance of escape, just as I saw my friend go down it only took me a moment to realize I had been shot as well, I slowly saw my vision fade before disappearing and slowly dying.

That brings us back to my current situation where I seem to be not fatally shot and now a Turian baby. "What would you like to name the baby ma'am." The doctor said holding what seems to be my birth certificate in the making. My new mother thinks for a moment before giving an answer. "I'll name him Velius, Velius Vakarian."

My eyes go wide as I hear the last name and many thoughts go through my mind, all of which lead to the fact that I now know that in some shape or form I'm related to Garrus. All I can do for now I suppose is ride this out and see what I can do and find out what year it is.

A few weeks later I did learn a few things first off, I was born in 2155 CE, meaning that by the time of the events in the first Mass Effect I will be 28. Second that means in three years Garrus will be born and I'll be his older brother, which will be strange Garrus was one of my favorite characters from the series. Finally, the third thing which is... learning how to move in a Turian's body is so damn strange, it feels like I'm learning to walk all over again even though I've retained all my knowledge from my past life, at least the bits I can remember. I'm even going to have to go through boot camp again due to how Turian society works, so once I'm about 15 I'll have to go through boot camp and figure out what to do after that.

_**Three years later...**_

Well here it is, the day of the legendary Garrus Vakarian's birth. I'm just sitting in the waiting room while the whole miracle of birth is happening in the next and frankly, I can only hope that I do well as a bigger brother since I was an only child in my past life.

About five hours passed before It was over and I was allowed to see Garrus, I walked into the room and once I saw him, I could feel my hard skip a beat. The poor little guy was adorable and I could only think about the fact I wanted to protect him, and that day I made a promise to myself, no matter what I will protect Garrus.

_**Seven years later...**_

I just hit ten years old today while Garrus hit seven only a few months before now, over the course of seven years I really got to know our parents and it gave me a much bigger understanding on why Garrus spoke with so much pain in the games when it came to his mother and father. Castis also known as our father is strict but I can tell he simply cares and wants to prepare us as much as possible for life and our mother is so extremely kind that it hurts to know that she'll fall sick and die in the future. So, I just chose to enjoy the times I have with the two before the inevitable issues arrive.

Father has been training me on combat and weapons over the past seven years to prepare me for my mandatory military service which helped me get used to not just the new weapons but also on how to how guns and knives with these damned three fingered hands. I've also been doing my own research, mainly on the tech of this world since it always fascinated me with how it worked and with the potential of it that we never saw in the games.

"Hey Veilus!" I shake my head suddenly getting knocked out of my own thoughts as I look to the one who called me and see Garrus walking towards me. "Oh, hey Garrus what's up?" I say knowing he likely needs something. "I was just wondering if you would come to the store with me since mom asked me to get some food and take you with me." I nod in response not surprised since the store isn't that far away, a mile down the road at the most.

We say bye to our mother before leaving since dad is working at the moment. As we walk to the store, I can't help but look around since we are currently living on the Citadel after living on Palaven for two years, no matter what I don't think I'll ever get used to the sight. "Veilus! We're here" I snap out of my daydream again. "I really need to stop doing that." Garrus lets out a small chuckle at my comment.

We start our walk home after buying the food as I let out a yawn and look around as Garrus hums to himself. "So Garrus, what's your favorite weapon dad has introduced to you so far?" I say curious as to what dad has shown him and trained him with so far. "I prefer the rifles the most but I can't stand those stupid sniper rifles, I can't hit anything with them and dad keeps making me use the ones that are bigger than me!" I sigh understanding his struggle having dealt with similar people in my past life. "Don't worry Garrus I understand but I also understand what he is trying to teach you bud, he is just trying to prepare you and teach you to stay strong even when you face a heavy obstacle." Garrus nods and pauses for a moment. "Yeah... he said something like that to me as well."

We get back home and notice that dad returned but clearly a bit stressed but lightens up slightly as he sees the two of us. "Hey there you two I see you got what your mother asked for." I nod and hand the bag to mom as dad stands up and stretches. "Garrus sit tight I'm going to go ahead and do your brothers training for the day and then you'll be next." Garrus nods and goes away off to do his own thing as dad motions for me to follow to which I can only assume will be the firing range as usual.

We arrive to the firing range that is currently empty, dad leads me into the stall I'll use today. Once I get to the stall, he lays out three different weapons onto the table, An Avenger assault rifle, Naginata sniper rifle, and finally a Razer pistol. "Last time we focused on the shotgun since I wanted you used to the recoil of them, now we are going to continue with the rest of the weapons, first with the sniper." I pick it up and grit my teeth as I struggle to hold the annoyingly sized weapon up before planting it on the table and aiming down range.

I was already introduced to the weapons before now by dad so I had a better understanding of how they feel to fire compared to my old weapons and thankfully these weapons still run off the heat system instead of the clips which in many cases can feel like a downgrade. As I aim down range and focus my shot it's moments like these, I thank my past life as a marine for training me in aiming and firing, taking a deep breath and aiming down the scope lining up the shot before finally letting the breath flow and taking the shot.

I take three more shots after this each one faster than the others before laying the gun down and letting dad call the target back letting me see that my shots placed well besides one that drifted to a five-point compared to the two nines and bullseye. "Very good though I can see the need for improvement with one of your shots though I suppose you also need to get adjusted to the weight of the weapon. We continue for about four more hours spending another hour on the sniper before switching weapons every hour. "Great job today Veilus, your aim has gotten much better and I think by the time you are sent off to boot camp you'll end up being one of the best soldiers in the year." I nod feeling proud at his praise before mentally sighing at the fact that I have to go through another boot camp, but at least I'm prepared this time. We arrive home and dad simply goes to the living room and sits down with mom, I smile as I look at them before going to Garrus who is currently playing with a few toys. I sit down and decide to play with him for the rest of the day especially as I see him look up and smile at me as I sit down. I give his head a mini noogie chuckling as I think about the future and what's to come, but all those thoughts flow away as I see my brother happy as can be and I can only think and know that we'll figure it out and make it through no matter what the galaxy throws at us.


	2. Boot Camp Part 1

_**Five years later**_

It's been five more years, five years of bonding with my family and five years of getting my ass kicked by dad as he trains me for boot camp, and now the day is here. I take a deep breath ready for what's to come. I'm packed and ready, about to take off and go to the station and wait for my ship. I walk over and hug mom and dad goodbye both choosing not to say anything and simply enjoy the moment, I then go Garrus chuckling as I see how big he is compared to his former size. "See you later Garrus make sure to take care of mom and dad." He nods and pulls me into a hug, "Don't worry Velius you know me, able to hold down any fort!" I give him another noogie at his cheeky response before grabbing my packed stuff, full of mostly clothes as I leave walk to the station and wait for the ship.

It has been about an hour now of which I've spent fiddling around with a small program on my omni-tool that I made to help train my hacking skill and overall skill with the technology of this world, makes me wonder why more isn't done with the omni tool in the games though I suppose that could be gameplay limits. My thoughts are interrupted by a loud whooshing as the ship arrives to take me and the other passengers to Palaven.

Palaven is an impressive planet I have to say though it's strange being on a different planet than Earth, but I didn't have long to think about it as I had to quickly get to the second ship that would take us across the planet and to the main base for training new recruits, though I'm more prepared than the others here I should still be ready for the differences that are going to come with being a turian recruit.

God, why did you send me here into another hell? It's only been an hour and they didn't even bother with paperwork first and processing they just sent us off and now we're doing the normal exercises and tests, I'm sure they're doing the boring stuff behind the scenes while we're out in the yard doing laps around the track just going around again and again, I just can't wait to get this over with.

Well I've come across my first roadblock that I wasn't prepared for, turian history. Sure, I learned some from the games, and the schools on the Citadel but the questions they're asking I never learned like _who was the first Primarch of the Turian Hierarchy? _How am I supposed to know that dammit!

It's been about a week now and I feel like the universe is treating me like a joke now. When you think of turian's you usually think stubborn and straight faced for most of them, however this one seems to think different. "Hey there Vel! Surprised to see you're relaxing; you usually seem like you're about to jump up and attack at any moment." His mandibles raise in just the right way that I can tell he's smirking like the ass he is. "Yeah of course I'm relaxed now, it's chow time and we have a moment to breath I'll take the chance to relax any day." He gives a bit of a chuckle which still sounds strange due to the metallic ring of turian voices. Oh yeah that reminds me, this clown here is Tibertus Ursiril and he's the self-proclaimed star of this platoon of recruits and an absolute pain to deal with for one reason and one reason only, he's completely arrogant! I can only be thankful that I've dealt with arrogant people, mainly officers in the marines. The thing that makes it worse is for some reason he feels the need to bother me, and I hate to say it but his arrogance isn't completely unfounded, he has some skill especially when it comes to close quarters.

_**Ten months later**_

It seems their testing us more on our discipline and ability to follow orders now as they are about to send us into a simulated environment against another platoon of recruits. I see our instructor start to assign squads and leaders so I simply listen to him and wait for my name to be listed. "Velius Vakarian! Go to Delta Squad! You'll also be leading it today!" I jerk in place as he says this having wanted to avoid leading anything and just take the orders so we could move on. I hear the instructor speak up again "Now then squad leaders meet up and draw up a plan for the battle! The match will start in an hour so use this time well!" I grumble a bit as I meet up with the other squad leaders, there's only three other squads, Alpha, Beta and Charlie. I take a deep breath as I listen to the other three only remembering their last names. Alpha has Victis, Beta has Genecus and Charlie has Macsis.

I hear Victis really attempt to take the lead here. "We should combine our squads and march them through the desert, it's better that we-" Macsis cuts him off, "Oh yes and make ourselves the easiest target around, you're proposing the most predicable approach." Victis continues, "Yes it's predictable but effective, if we march and spot the enemy, we can suppress them and pin them down long enough to storm the area capturing the base." Genecus cuts in, "What if we split the platoon and have one group storm the front while the other storms the back and create an enclosed trap." Finally, Macsis proposes his plan. "I like yours better Genecus but it still seems too aggressive, the whole point of the match is capturing the enemy base correct? So why not just fortify and hold down the area, prepare for the enemy and have them wear themselves out." Victis gets angry and raises his voice as he slams down on the table. "Vrack! Why would we do that, it's has more flaws than the one you pointed out in mine! In fact it has some of the same issues, so why do the same thing but defensive!" The entire time they discuss this I'm looking at the map which in real life will cover a relatively short distance only about two miles worth of land, I listen to what they propose and the three plans are solid ideas in the right situation, however I can't help but feel they're missing the final touch we need to make a solid plan. Just as I get an idea, "I know what to do, it combines the plans in a complex but simple way." I get their attention as I begin to speak. "We'll pull two small plans that will meet up for the finale, the biggest issue we have is the matter of open space and lack of cover making us easy targets. However, if we provide an illusion, we can scare them into making rash decisions." I speak for a bit longer about the plan before Victis puts some input in. "What if they don't fall for the illusion or worse retaliate before we're ready?" "We improvise and adapt, plans can only go so well, however given the conditions and area I have a good feeling that the illusion will work, especially with the conditions we'll set up beforehand." All three of them think about the plan for a moment before nodding, worried yet trusting the plan that sounds promising. "Now all that's left is to relay the message to our squads and prepare for the match. Let's not let our platoon down and let's show the other platoon who the soft plates are.

_**Turian Slang and Curses**_  
(_**Vrack- Fuck as in to fuck off or fuck you)**__**  
**_(_**Soft Plates- Weak)**_


	3. Boot Camp Part 2

Well it's time, I can only hope that the plan goes well, small scale battles like these always worried me despite the less amount of people. Turian's are an interesting species to work with for military battles and operations I can already tell that much. I start to focus on the area as I hear the announcer. "Let the mock battle begin fight hard and fight well."

Everyone quickly takes off; we all stay together before we get to the hill that helps to block sight of us from the enemy. I signal the other squads to get in position, the area we're placed on is mainly a mix of forest and plains, combining open fields and trees making cover scarce especially near the bases which hold next to no cover for anyone seeking to attack. I go back to the coms, "Alright Alpha and Beta get started, and remember, move quickly and move efficiently, you know what you're doing."

I say as I take a hidden position near a tree as my squad stays covered taking out the sniper I grabbed as I look through the scope, seeing Alpha and Beta moving past each other quickly dashing through the trees I then hear through the coms a countdown then an explosion, quickly moving my scope as I see that one of our men threw a grenade at the entrance. I see one of the enemy squads move out of the base and into nearby fortifications and get to work shooting at the men running in the forest. "Watch out it seems they intended to hold out and wear us down, they built cover and fornications so be wary." I hear Victis quickly speak through the coms, and I move my scope as I see someone mistakenly pop their head out and try to get an overview of what's happening and I know that's where I come in, taking aim at him and getting ready to fire.

That's when it happens, I can't move and I can barely breath shaking horribly as I look down my scope trying desperately to pull the trigger but unable to as the guy pulls back in after someone else takes a pot shot at him. I'm still shaking as the battle isn't even there for me anymore and all I can think of is the ambush that killed me, my friend and the entire escort all because we didn't know the value of the VIP.

I'm stuck in a loop replaying those events again and again, thinking about what I should have done, I should have asked more questions, I should have taken more precautions! I should have prevented all those deaths!

I'm suddenly shook out of it and I see Tibertus. "Hey! Vel! What's going on you just froze and didn't respond" I hear him say as I remember that he was assigned to my squad. "I... I don't know." I start to breath normally again focusing back on the action. "The squad is waiting for your order; it's been five minutes since you froze!" I simply nod and look through the scope as I growl noticing that we lost half of a squad in my moment of pause.

I look and see that they have managed to get a few people some from the first squad and I see that others from the enemy platoon have started shooting from inside the base. "Shit, change of plans! Alpha get out of that area and use the forest to flank, Beta lock yourself down and start using all the explosives you have, pressure them best you can, Charlie is going to move into the base and attack from the inside. "How are we going to do that!" I see Tibertus yell out as I going through my newer omni tool, still weaker than military grade but not far from it especially with the modifications I made that increased its limit. "I'm going to take their lights; I can't take out their weapons yet but I can effectively blind them."

Tibertus takes a deep breath as I motion for us to move, part of the initial plan having worked as they have no idea how many are in the forest, taking a moment as I work my omni tool and set up two commands. Starting it off by using a low level EMP on the base that shuts down their lights as my squad makes their way inside and I can see some of the enemy turians start to worry.

I then whisper into my coms" Alpha move in once you see a bright light and Beta use a smoke and stay put make them think you're moving." I then set off a flashbang from my omni tool inside the base, blinding and deafening the other two squads as I hear guns firing outside signaling that Beta is providing their distraction. Alpha moves in and meets up with us as we move further in and quickly make work. Our two squads split from each other each taking one side of the surprisingly open room as I take a deep breath while taking out my smg tensing up as I quickly pull the trigger on one of turians before I can even think as the rest of the team takes out the squad on this floor with no trouble, simple shots to the chest putting them down as we get ready to move to the next floor I motion for Alpha to go down and flank the other squad that's shooting at Beta since I remember that the next floor is narrow as can be.

My squad gets on the stair to next floor still moving quickly still having my omni tool unusable due to overheating and cooling down. I take the lead and quickly take cover as I feel a shot fly by as I motion for one more from my squad to come up and have them take cover as we're being suppressed, pushing the button on one of these weird disc grenades as I throw it down the hall, messing up my aim slightly as it lands a little short. However, it still serves its purpose as the suppressive fire ends and the remaining members of my squad move up and take cover.

Tibertus and I lay down our own suppressive fire with my smg and his Avenger keeping the final enemy squad behind cover as the others move down and finish off the enemy before they can react. Taking a deep breath as I see this I quickly get on the coms. "Alpha, Beta give me a report." "The fortified squad down here was taken out; I'm assuming since you're talking to us that it's the same for you?" I chuckle out of exhaustion as I respond "Yes... Yes it is. The next few hours are simply the clean up as our instructors praise us for our victory before sending us back to our barracks to wind down from the battle and prepare for tomorrow.

As we settle in for the night I sit on the side of my bunk/bed my body shaking and if I could sweat, I'm willing to bet I would be. I feel a hand on my shoulder again and see Tibertus who simply says nothing and just stays by my side providing a small bit of comfort as I try to stop my mind's own personal hell.

"Velius... what is matter?" I pause before looking at him and doing my best to explain. "It's complicated, it's just when I saw the guy in my sights and was about to pull the trigger, my body just rejected the motion, I couldn't do it and when we went inside I knew I had to fire and had to fight, so I simply pulled the trigger without thinking and even then I felt like my body was going to collapse.

He listens closely and lets me speak, "I see... well I'll be honest, while I don't understand and defiantly can't tell you what the problem is, I can say that I'm here for you Vel, I'm fully aware that I annoy you but I do like to think that in a small way, you see me as a friend to lean on." I nod knowing that out of everyone here I trust him the most no matter how small it is. "Thank you." That's all I can say before we're forced to settle in for the night and prepare ourselves for the next day.

**Graduation Day**

Today is graduation day and I couldn't be happier that it's over, it's also the day where I get my face markings, which are going to be the same as Garrus and our father. I was put at the top of this year's recruits for my scores in regular training and my actions during the simulated battle, which if my eyes don't deceive me makes my father very happy. Hours pass and we get through the whole ordeal, being official citizens and expected to go into service for a while as I go over to my father, mother and Garrus.

I feel a strange sense of pride as my father puts on my markings now copying him and completing my look, standing at 6ft 5in as I hug my now eight-year-old brother as I see Tibertus come over to me with his new markings as well, green markings that form a X shape over his face. "Hey Vel! Ready to get going? It seems like we are getting assigned to the same unit!" "What are we doing in the unit?" I say having next to no idea what we are going to be doing. "We'll being focused on shutting down of terrorist, gang, and other similar operations." I think for a moment and sigh not wanting to stay in the turian military but also knowing this can help me with experience of the galaxy, plus I don't want to completely abandon my friend.

I nod to him and he takes the time we have left to introduce himself to my family. "Hello there I'm Tibertus Ursil I'm the one who carried your son-" I shut him up by grabbing his head and pushing it down. "Shut your trap Tib, you didn't carry S'kak" Garrus gives a chuckle at the actions while my father simply sighs at it as I hear one higher rank turian call for all graduates. "I'll be sure to contact you soon; you don't have anything to worry about!" I say as I get going dragging Tib with me he's my friend but he's still a little annoying piece of shit though this shit has some gems in it.

We get on the ship that holds the main people of our unit only containing about five people including Tib and I. We all look at the dark skinned female turian in front of us, her face nearly fully covered in a mix of white and blue markings "Hello I'm the commander of our little fireteam/unit here. My name is Polnia Agnian and I expect you to follow commands as I order them without question is that understood?" Everyone nods, "Good, now then introduce yourself to each other and get settled, I'll notify you once we get an assignment."

She leaves and everyone starts introducing themselves as the first one to speak is a male turian with simple purple markings that fully cover his mandibles. "Hey there I'm Maxus Sulin my skill is mainly in long range and accuracy." Tib then introduces himself. "Hello! I'm Tibertus Ursil and I specialize in hand to hand along with close to mid-range weapons. Finally, the last one introduces herself a female turian with yellow markings that create a full line along her mandibles and mouth. "I'm Destia Quirinus and I specialize in tech and mid-range weapons marksman type weapons." I finally introduce myself, "I'm Velius Vakarian and I specialize in tech and weapons of any range."

After introductions are finished, we all get up and head to bunks picking our spots everyone tired from the long day as everyone quickly drifts off to sleep as I can only worry for the future. I can only think about my plan for it as I drift off, some time in this unit and move on to something else that allows me to travel and gain info, but what kind of job is there that allows that. My thoughts eventually fade away as I fall asleep and the next day arrives.


	4. First Mission

It's been over a month now and we still haven't gotten assigned a mission to perform, so we have decided to simply travel to Omega and do a bit of recon. This is also our commander's way of figuring out the jobs we are best suited for and seeing what we can do. Currently the commander has Tib and Maxus out on the field to balance each other out and see how they mix, so for the moment I'm just working on my own projects which is currently my multi-purpose drone I so dearly call Flint. I'm focused on modifying and fine tuning his settings making sure he can produce what I need him to when I suddenly get approached from behind.

"Hey what are you working on there." I turn around in my seat to see Destia staring down at me working on my omni-tool as I accidently push a button and Flint spazzes and sparks. "Shit!shit!" I panic for a moment before fixing it taking a deep breath before recalling him and stopping my work, I then finally respond to her. "I was working on Flint, I started work on him once I got assigned here and I almost have him finished, the only thing I need to finish is the shield for the drone." Destia gives me a confused look raising a brow causing me to chuckle since confused Turians are a hilarious sight. "I have only about three things I designed for him, a fast firing gun, a targeted overload and the trickiest thing being the shield I'm attempting to have him create which would him project a shield in front of whatever I order him to." She nods and pulls a chair next to me. "Want some help? I actually know a bit about tech armor and shields, in fact I even made a bit of tech armor for myself to boost my defense." "HELL YES." I say extremely excited as she tells me that she can help since I had been struggling for a while with this stupid shield function for a while.

For the next few hours before Polnia and the others get back we spend time working on Flint's shield, we not only got a rough finish on it but she also taught me more about shields. As I look at the time, I see that many hours have passed and I get a message from Polnia saying that their little team test and training has wrapped up and they should be back in the next two hours. So, we decide to relax for a bit and chat with each other. "So, Destia what got you interested in tech anyway?" She leans forward in the chair before speaking. "It's mainly because of my father, he was an engineer and spent a lot of time with ships though that didn't stop him from spending days after days of time working on ways to improve his tech. He would take me to the garage portion of our home and let me stay and sometimes help on whatever he was working on, whether it be armor, vehicles or omni-tool weapons like a cyro blast, what about you Velius?" I smirk seeing her speak so happily about her father and tech since over the past month she always seemed very... secluded.

"Well I always just had an interest in tech due to the fact I feel like there's so much we still haven't explored with what we have." She nods before speaking again. "I like that way of thinking leaves a lot of room for the future." I give a smile as we continue to get to know each other and share our experiences.

I finally get an alert from the ship's VI telling us that Polnia has returned with the others. "It's a shame we have to end this early but let's go ahead and greet the returning party." She agrees as we walk to the door that is already closing behind them as Polnia orders the two to get some rest now. "Hello ma'am how was the training?" I say curious of how it went. "It went very well and I think I got a good read on everyone by now since I've already taken you and Quirinus out into the field, so you should expect an actual mission to come in any time soon, but for now you're allowed to do as you like for now just don't injure yourself or each other." As she says this, I can see just how tired she looks, eyes dim with metaphorical bags under her eyes. "Yes ma'am!" Everyone responds before going off to do their own thing.

**Three months later**

It seems we finally got our first mission. "Alright everyone, I just got an assignment for us that's detailing we have a bit of a hijacking situation on a ship. We're currently traveling to the coordinates given, our enemies seem to be Batarian pirates and true to form they seem to be seeking to take the people on board as slaves to sell." I shake my head taking a deep breath as I glance around everyone still laser focused on what we will do. "When we arrive and board the ship, I want us to move quick and efficiently along with this I'm taking only two others with me due to the small size of the ship and areas inside. Ursiril, Vakarian, you're coming with me so get suited up and get prepared, we'll be arriving in approximately 30 minutes." I nod and Tib gives me a thumbs up as Polnia gives her attention to Maxus and Destia. "Now I don't know what's going to happen so I want you two suited up and ready for any order I might call and give to you, I want everyone ready for the worst! Now you're all dismissed get moving!"

Tib and I get moving to our lockers and I pull out the armor I was assigned. "Spirits I've always hated this armor, so damn bulky and it never sits right." I can hear Tib chuckling as I rant to myself, sometimes I want to smash that cheeky bugger's face into the ground."

By the time were done getting prepared I look at what I have to make sure everything's on. Full eye visor like Vetra's? Done, my two omni-tools online and fully function? Done, I then check for my weapons, my Katana shotgun and Avengers rifle that I modified to increase its punch though I had to sacrifice it's cooling for it so it takes a bit longer to cool down than normal.

"TIB!" I yell out to him since we are about to arrive and I have no idea where the hell he is. Tib sprints down the hallway out of nowhere startling me. He stands in his black and green striped armor that he's proud of. "What were you doing?" He pauses and catches his breath from the sprint. "I realized I forgot my little lucky charm." He holds up a tiny broken off talon that I recognize quickly. "Can't just leave my father behind, now can I?"

We finally arrive at the ship as the pilot quickly turns and gets us in a position to board, Tib and I simply wait for our orders from Polnia taking a deep breath and preparing for the fight that's to come. Polnia finally walks over to us as I see she's outfitted in black armor with her helmet at her side. "Alright get ready you two, cause one I give the order I'm going to need you to haul it on board since it's not unlikely that we'll have an immediate ambush once we board." I raise a hand up as I call out Flint my trusty little guy modified to have a smaller form in the shape of a bird, something I designed so he wouldn't be as noticeable. "I can use Flint to shield us as we enter the ship ma'am, however I'll have to call him back after for a moment since it takes a lot of power from him, he'll have to recharge for a minute but we'll have a buffed up shield as we go straight into a death trap." She says nothing and simply nods for me to use this plan. "Your time to shine little buddy."

It's finally time as Polnia motions for us to move we get to the door and quickly run in as it opens, as we get into the hijacked ship, we see that surprisingly there's no ambush and no enemies, there's... nothing. "Well this is a welcoming atmosphere." Tib makes a small comment and I can't blame him the scenario is unnerving. Polnia leads the way as we search the ship, keeping our abilities and guns ready for any enemy to appear.

As we search the ship I can about the possibility that the pirates that boarded the ship might be extremely small in number. Polnia suddenly raises her hand for us to stop as she peeks around the corner. "Alright it seems like they decided to hold down, there're holed up the command room and cockpit, Ursiril go around and flank from the second entrance Vakarian and I will attack from this entrance, notify me once you get to the second entrance." Tib nods before running off and going around to the other side.

Polnia finally gets notified as she starts a timer on my visor and Tib's Hud, counting down, five, four, three, two, one! We blast in and rush inside quickly dispatching of the only enemy inside. "Something is wrong here." I say as I see the one killed Batarian on the ground two shots in the chest and one to the head, I have to take a deep breath as I see him, still struggling with my mind's push against me whenever it comes to killing and fighting but defiantly better.

As we look around Polnia and Tib get to work on freeing the captured people which consist of mainly Salarians and Humans. My brain is working on overdrive as I look around and I can see the other two still tense as well, I mean what the hell is going on, we would ask the crew of the ship but when we got here everyone was unconscious and, the world suddenly shifts becoming blurry and disorientating my body feels like it will collapse into itself as I suddenly feel a hard hit to the head looking at Flint who just banged against me. Shaking my head as I see Tib passed out and Polnia completely zoned out seeming like she isn't even here, I quickly put my breathing mask on as I get a breath of fresh air quickly searching the room as I rush over to Polnia grabbing her helmet as I put it on her head letting her catch her breath as I see multiple flickers in the air.

"Shit!" I quickly work my omni-tool focusing a mass overload into the room shorting out and disrupting all enemy equipment, by the time I see four Batarians get knocked out of their cloak Polnia recovers. Two of the Batarians are stuck in shock due to their equipment backfiring and doing damage to them. I pull out my shotgun as Polnia rushes forward and pulls out a sword which from the look of it I can only assume is a Talon and stabs into one of the non-stunned Batarians as I aim at the other one and take him down with a single shot due to the lack of shields. As the other two recover I attempt to take one of them down as he rushes towards me knocking my shotgun blast away just in time before the shot let off. We start our small brawl; my armor manages to do its job and block a knife stab from him but fails on the second try as he finds an opening in my side causing me to grit my teeth as I grab his shoulders and lock him in place before kicking out his feet from under him quickly following him to the ground and slamming my fist into his face as I feel a crack from the hit wasting no time as I pull out my own small combat knife and slam it into his neck sealing his fate as it drives through. He struggles and attempts to move as I get off him but to no avail. I look to my left panting as I see Polnia already took care of the last guy.

I retrieve my knife from the now corpse and focus on getting everyone out of here, putting a hand to my side as I feel the knife is still thankfully in my side as I help Polnia grab Tib and haul him to the ship. "Sulilin help me get all the crew members off the ship, Vakarian go to Destia and have her check the wound. "I completely forgot that you're our doctor on this ship." I carefully take my armor off, avoiding the knife as I lay down on one of the beds in what amounts to a shirt and pants as I see Destia rush over and takes a look at the wound, already gathered the necessary materials. "Ow! Spirits couldn't you have been gentler with it?" I say as she puts down the knife, she just tugged out of me. "Well it's out now and it didn't hit anything important so I believe that's what matters isn't it? Though it seems like these guys poisoned their knifes. Luckily it seems weak" I grumble as she gets to work doing normal stuff simply disinfecting it and injecting the wound with something, I'm assuming will take care of the poison and then putting Medi-gel over the wound. "There good as new, should be healed up in a few days, but I'm going to have to ask for you to stay for at least an hour since I have to make sure the antidote, I cooked up worked.

"Thanks, I'll admit I'm almost completely useless when it comes to first aid. Most I can do is put some Medi-gel on someone and hope for the best." I'm exaggerating a little bit; I did get forced into taking basic first aid in my days as a marine but some of it is outdated now. "Why did you go down the whole medicine route in the first place? Most Turians know would rather fight or solve crimes." I sense a small grin at the question as I look at her. "Well I'm no pacifist but I always found more enjoyment in things like tech and healing and I know that even without being in service there are places that I can use my knowledge and places I can go to help communities." I didn't expect that, many Turians seem like they want to get into the action and serve so much almost comparable to Krogans, though I suppose I forget that not every Turian follows the norm. "That's a great goal Destia, hope you get to where you want to be in time." I say as I see her body relax, not even noticing that it was tense before.

Hours later Polnia calls us into a meeting. "Alright lets quickly go over what happen in there." She gives a brief rundown up to the point that we took all of them out. "Now these pirates were more skilled and prepared than average, their equipment was nothing to scoff at, they were dressed in white armor and helmets." Tib stands up and speaks up. "I think I know who these guys are, my mother actually told me about these guys they call themselves The White Death. Not only is their armor just like the ones I was told of, but they also fit the memo in terms of how they kill their enemies." Tib continues to explain as he takes in a breath. "They despise all species and mainly Turians, there aren't a lot of them and that's likely didn't know about them ma'am."

The meeting doesn't expand much more for us, Polnia simply dismisses us and keeps Tib to get more information. But The White Death, must be something unique or something taken care of since it never showed up in the games, we got lucky today and I can tell even if we didn't get effected by the gas that was in the air they probably were ready to adapt, I'm just glad I caught them off guard with the overload which is likely what saves our asses. All I know is that we need something that will prevent us from getting caught off guard like that again.

It's finally time for us to rest as our daily cycle comes to an end, I lay down comfy in my bed though wincing at the healing wound while I see Tib walk over to his, as his body is slumped and his feet drag across the floor. "Tib, what's the matter?" He sits down on his bed and lets out a sigh, his sub-harmonics sounding distressed. "These White Death guys, they aren't just another enemy Vel, this group is horrible, I've seen what they do in a lot of cases, they don't capture and sell off slaves, they simply kill and kill, no survivors. I already can tell what's he saying, he must have had a run-in with them before boot camp and nearly died as I can imagine. "I can only thank my mother for getting me off that ship as fast as she did, thanks to her we both escaped that horror." After he says that we both just take a moment to gather our thoughts as we lay back and both understanding this isn't going to be the last we see of them.


	5. Downtime

_**One year later**_

About a year has passed and things have only gotten worse, over the past year Tib has changed and has gotten more tense and silent. He stopped his jokes and overall upbeat nature; from what I've seen he has been focused on doing his duty and doing research on The White Death. I've tried to ask him about it but he's been more hostile towards everyone. Polnia just leaves him since he does his job, that seems to be a common thing with Turians.

Aside from trying to help Tib I've been focused on improving my equipment and preparing for future situations. I even made another drone and I named him Patriot, I designed him in the shape of a small bird just like Flint. Patriot however has a different purpose, I created him as a recon drone after what happened on the first mission since I wanted to avoid being caught off guard like that again. I set him up so that any person he sees he'll highlight on my Hud, blue for friendly, red for enemy and green for unknown.

I also have another project in the works but finishing it up is difficult since it's a different kind of territory, it's also difficult to work when it feels like the entire ship is on edge and is about to dive face first into a planet's core. I get up and walk into the ship's kitchen cause it's simply too damn early today to think about this.

I finish making some coffee which taste absolutely horrible, Turians don't know how to make decent coffee it seems and I see Polnia is finally up, seeing her walk in like a zombie that hasn't gotten any food in years. She's always the first one up after me, I'm pretty sure my habits as a marine haven't changed even though my situation has drastically changed, everyone gets up early of course but annoyingly enough my body takes it a step further.

"Hello there Vakarian." She says looking at me as she breaks my chain of thought and grabs some food from the fridge that's basically dead and empty by this point.

"Hello ma'am pleasant morning isn't it?" I say as I continue to drink my coffee hiding my smirk as I can hear a rumble of annoyance from her sub harmonics.

"Don't give me that sarcastic S'kak Vakarian, you know full well by now that I despise mornings." She says as she eats giving me the occasional glare.

It gets silent as we both just try to adjust to the morning, this is pretty normal, Polnia is likely one of the better leaders I've had in my lives, I've dealt with so many idiots that make me question just how they got to where they are. I suppose that's a positive of Turians, due to how things are set up we get more competent people in charge most of the time. My mind can't help but drift to the Turian consular, yeah most of the time.

"Ma'am that reminds me, when is the next shore leave at the Citadel, we're running a bit low on supplies and things are getting a bit...tense here on the ship." I say letting out a small uncomfortable cough as I put my cup down finished with it.

"We're actually on the route to the Citadel at the moment, we'll be there for about three days." She gets up and puts her plates and utensils in the sink. "Do me a favor Vakarian and let everyone know that they have shore leave in about six hours."

I nod and watch her leave before walking into the beds and finding Maxus there. He's a strange one, he keeps his distance and doesn't talk much to anyone here, but he does his job and that's what matters to us.

"Maxus do you know where the others are?" I say hoping he actually answers me instead of ignoring me like usual. He simply points in a direction. "Thanks Maxus." I then take off towards where he pointed which leads into the engine room as I spot Destia.

"Destia! Polnia wanted me to let you know we're stopping at the Citadel in a few hours, we'll be on shore leave for a bit. Also do you know where Tib is?" I say as I get close and see her checking up on the engine and making sure it's running correctly.

"Thanks for letting me know, and Ursiril was making his way to the workbenches last time I saw him, I believe he was going to do some maintenance on his weapons." She doesn't break eye contact with the terminal screen as she speaks.

"Thanks for the help!" I say as I run off to the workbenches waving back at her as I notice her give me a small wave back making me smile. I arrive at the workbenches and I find Tib there. "Hey, Tib we're going to have shore leave in a few hours." I say as I walk up next to him and put a hand on his shoulder getting closer making sure I have his attention.

"Alright, I get it, I'll be ready once we get there." I can't help but wonder what's going through his head as he gets back to working on his guns. I give him a pat on the back as I start to walk away.

"By the way Tib, make sure you keep your head on straight you're my friend and I want to keep you living well, so just... keep yourself together man." I say as I walk away leaving him to think and work.

I walk into the small barracks and prepare a few things before pulling up my omni-tool and taking down a few notes of things to get when we get to the Citadel. I stretch before getting into clothes suitable for roaming the biggest space station in existence. I put on a simple black and dark green hoodie with some loose pants. "Damn these spurs always make pants a pain."

I spend the next few hours running a hacking program on my omni-tool testing it against different levels and types of firewalls. I then hear us finally arrive and dock with Citadel port making me breathe a sigh of relief that we finally have a bit of time off as we restock the ship.

I hear a beep from my omni-tool and see a message from Destia. "Hey, I'm going to be shopping for a few things mind accompanying me, we can travel to wherever you need to as well." I know we have plenty of time so it wouldn't hurt to run with Destia by a few shops, just as I send the message and think for a moment, I realize the situation soon after and I feel conflicted. I mean I'm still not the best at understanding more subtle Turian emotions. Nothing is more confusing than a Turian and Human mind conflicting on what the hell is attractive.

Well I guess I'm committed to this now as I follow her out of the ship. "So, where's the first stop? What are you getting in the first place?" I say as we stop at a store, I don't recognize so I simply read the shop's name Amy's Antiques.

"It's a Human antique shop, I met a Human a while ago when I was on shore leave when I was with my last unit. since the shop is open, she should be nearby." I nod as I walk in with her as she searches around for who I assume is a friend of hers. I walk around browsing as I see a lot of old items, a few that are even from my time as I see an old smartphone causing me to chuckle.

"Wow it's strange seeing this after so long..." I get lost in my thoughts for a moment taking a moment to remember some nice moments as a human, god talk about a reality check.

"Hello! Is there something that catches your eye? Surprised to see a Turian here in a Human antique shop." I look over at the girl talking to me who's quite short likely only about 5'3 in height with tanned skin. I hear her give a friendly chuckle as I put the old smartphone back on the shelf.

"Is that a bad thing miss? I say smiling at the friendly woman, relaxing as I put my hands and talons in my hoodie pockets.

"No not at all I welcome it in fact, the more who get to experience old human culture the better!" I nod in response

"Couldn't agree with that more, that reminds me I'm guessing you're Amy, pretty sure Destia is looking for you." I say as I notice Destia walking over to us. "Speaking of the devil, hey there Destia, I think I found your friend."

"Destia's here?" She says before turning around and seeing her "Destia!" Amy proceeds to quickly hug and squeeze Destia clearly excited. "It's been so long! How are you?"

Destia returns the hug before moving away. "I'm doing well all things considered, I mostly came here to check up on you Amy since it's been well over a year since we've seen each other." Destia and Amy proceed to catch up with each other making me smile before walking away and continuing to browse letting the two friends catch up with each other.

It's good to see a Turian and Human getting along, glad to see neither has been raised with resentment to each other. I continue to think before stopping as I see a particular item an old electronic piano keyboard, sitting and collecting dust on the shelf. "This brings back some memories..." I start to get nostalgic as I pick it up and hold it looking at it. I remember when I played with these as a kid up till, I was sent off to Marine Corps boot camp, I just never really had the time to pick it back up then.

"Hey Amy how much would this be?" I say as I hold up the old keyboard. Looking at my account as well as I see I have a nice sum of about 30,000 credits from my monthly pay and knowing I'll be able to afford the price.

"Hmm, oh that? It's an oldie that just needs a bit of power to work, I would say that's about 200 credits." She says as her face crawls into an interested look. "Just curious... but what motivated you to buy that Velius?"

I hand her my credit chip and pay for it as I answer. "It simply reminded me of some happy times, that's all." I say as I take the keyboard back and put it into my backpack. "Hey Destia I'll wait outside while you two catch up, it was nice to meet you Amy." They nod and Amy waves goodbye as I walk outside feeling a bit nostalgic as I think about the past and my last life, then my mind drifts to this life and the time I've spent here all the way from baby Garrus, Tibertus, and now Destia. "I guess I can't forget what I have to protect here."

A few hours later Destia comes out and we finish up hers and my shopping. My bank account now at a lower 10,000 credits due to what I bought, which was mainly forging equipment so I can continue to make more tech and gear to improve, the Auto-Forge, Auto-Lathe and Omni-Optic were expensive but not too bad, however all the materials I needed is what caused my account to go down the drain.

As I think about how much I paid for everything I feel my stomach growl at me. "Hey let's stop for something to eat, I'm sure you're hungry, it's been a bit since breakfast, I'll pay." I say as I see us passing by a restaurant that serves dextro food.

"Sure! Should be good especially if you're paying." She says with a joking tone making me smile as we head inside and get a table and I swear I can see her drooling at the menu.

"Well it's good to see you like the menu." I say with a bit of amusement in my voice.

"Oh, don't start Velius I saw you staring at the restaurant before we even got in here, it looked like you were going to attack it and eat everything." She says with a tone of sass which gains a small laugh from the both of us.

A little bit later we have our food and we eat throwing some questions at each other and discussing a few topics when a question pops into my head. "That reminds me, you never told me but how old are you? You said you were in a different unit before this one." I say curious.

"I'm 20 and I'll be 21 in 2 months." She says and I'm intrigued as I start counting.

"Hey that's awesome, I'll actually be 18 in a month, It's interesting in a simple way." I say as there's a notable silence at the table afterwards as a more delicate question sneaks into my head. "So, just curious, why did you invite me out to shop together, not that it was a bad thing of course." I say trying to have my question come across wrong.

"I just thought it could be a fun time, better to shop with someone rather than no one." There's another silent pause in the conversation. "Though I suppose I would be lying if I said there wasn't a second reason." She says as she takes a breath. "I've grown... interested in you, we have a lot in common and I feel like we're a good match." I'm sure if she could blush, she'd have one.

"I feel the same Destia, talking with you and spending time with you has been some of the greatest moments while with this unit, and I feel like we can make this work." I take a moment before taking my gloved hand and grabbing hers before I move and touch my fringe to hers taking the moment to just enjoy the moment and for the first time in a while feeling truly happy and peaceful.


	6. The Attack

_**One month later**_

I'm sitting at my workbench finally finishing up on my new armor, I don't have it painted yet so it's still just a plain grey color. It's a very slim looking armor, the neck ring piece that's common with Turian armor is shrunken and closer to my neck that is much more comfortable, at least for me. I'm quite proud of the armor and its additions that should help my combat ability.

"Hey Vakarian, what are you working on there?" I turn my head and see Polnia drinking another early cup of coffee, we tend to have conversations in the morning like this and it's giving me the chance to understand the type of Turian she is.

"Just my new armor, can't stand the standard crap they gave me, it's incredibly uncomfortable and the protection isn't even that great, those shields pop against higher end weapons and that armor would take two or three shots before getting punched through." I explain as she nods to my small rant on the standard armor the military gives privates.

"Yeah don't I know, I bought new and better armor as soon as possible and that was before I got my current armor and weapons, I will say I respect how much you work on your equipment and tech, if I didn't know better I'd say you'll change the battleground as we know it." She gives a small chuckle after her statement and takes another sip of her coffee as a question comes to mind.

"That reminds me Polnia, what's the story behind that blade you have it's unusual to see a Turian carrying around a short sword in these times." I say as I remember the blade she used back in the ship when we met The White Death that reminds me of swords that many people used back in the medieval ages.

"Oh, my talon? I got that after a very difficult mission, it's an honor weapon that older and higher ranked Turians might have, it's given out less today though." I'm interested to hear about this new piece of lore. We continue to chat for a while about ordinary things mainly about how crap the dextro coffee and food on this ship is.

After my morning conversation with Polnia I decide to check up on Destia who's down working down in the engine room as usual. "Hello my mate working hard as usual I see" She nods as I see a small smile crawl up to her mandibles.

"Yes, as always, but what brings you down here?" She says as she continues to work and listen to me.

"I decided to take a break on my work and came down to see you, I don't that's so wrong, besides I can tell you're almost done on what you're working on as well. I say as I look at her terminal and she her labeled tasks are almost all marked out.

"Yes, yes, I know and I'll come up in just a moment when I'm done and I'll let you know my mate." I lean in and we touch fringes for a moment enjoying the moment before pulling away as I wave goodbye to her and go up to the next floor.

About two hours later we get a report, intel found a hidden base of The White Death and we're being tasked with destroying it. Polnia walks into the room and begins to explain. "Alright, as I've said we're going to be destroying one of the bases this little terrorist organization has set up. You all know them since we dealt with them over a year ago, The White Death." When she mentions the name, I can see Tib tense up which worries me. "This group has become more active over the past year and now the Hierarchy has considered them enough of a problem that they need to be hunted and eliminated."

She pauses and takes a breath as she continues the briefing. "Now then from what I've been told we still don't know the objective of this group aside from causing havoc and murdering innocent people." She sets up her omni-tool and shows us a schematic of the base. "Now then we're expecting a heavy resistance in the base, the enemies are expected to be well trained and with high tech equipment like the cloaks that they used last time." She shuts off her omni-tool and takes a moment to look over everyone.

"Now then we'll be arriving in five hours and I want to bring everyone due to the size of the mission and the threat it poses, therefore I want everyone mission ready in four hours. That's all I have for you, dismissed." Everyone gets up and as I get ready to leave, I'm forced to stop by Polnia as I feel her hand on my shoulder.

"Yes? What do you need from me ma'am?" I say a bit confused on why she stopped me silently instead of simply calling for me to stay.

"I need to speak to you about a few matters here first. First one being Ursiril and his behavior, I noticed he was less upbeat compared to when he first came in but I thought that he was simply maturing, however with the mention of this group once more coming into the spotlight I can see the difference is due to the group." I nod to her words in agreement, his behavior being something that has concerned me as well not just as ally but as a friend.

"I agree, I knew his behavior was bad after that first run in, however I haven't been able to talk to him about it, he's not been cooperative about it, but why bring it up now ma'am" I say as I take a seat while she lets out a heavy breath and sits down as well.

"I'm worried that he'll compromise the mission, he has been a good soldier so far but with the enemy we're facing I worry he might try to take reckless actions that will potentially get us killed." As she says this it raises a question in my head.

"If you're worried that he'll cause problems on this mission then why not keep him off the mission, even without him we'll have four men to infiltrate." I say as I consider the potential results from both choices.

"I'm not doing that since we'll need him, like I said we need everyone we have to take this mission on and for the plans that I have in place his addition will make a massive difference in this mission." She pauses as I notice just how tense she is. "All I want you to do is keep an eye on him and try to hold him in line when I'm not with him, understood?" I nod as lets out a sigh of relief.

"Now then for the second reason that I needed to talk to you." She says as she pulls up the base schematics again and transfers it to my omni-tool "I'll need you to take a bigger risk in this mission, we can't afford to be caught off guard by this group again and especially not when they have many more units than they did previously." As she speaks, I take a look at the layout and realize this is a relatively small base nearly small enough to be consider more of a hideout than a base. A two-story building with one large storage/garage type area that also served as the central location in the base. Along with four regular rooms that could serve various of purposes, a much bigger room that seemed to be the command point and one entrance that was also the exit, it's clear they wanted this place prepared in a case of an ambush.

"You have a lot of tools a lot I overlooked considering the quick run in and eliminate missions we usually have, however today I believe those tools will become our biggest strength." I nod as I think about the multiple pieces of tech, I've made for myself. "You'll be the first to infiltrate and you'll be assigned with taking out their preparations so we can follow you in." I understand how she's thinking, out of everyone on the team I have the best chance of getting in and sabotaging the enemy.

"I understand ma'am and I'll be sure to follow the plan you put in place." I sit back as my head starts running wild as I consider what I'll have to do.

"I'm glad you understand Vakarian, but I'm not just throwing you to in blind here, since you'll be the first going in, I want you to help me develop the plan, besides I need a second opinion.

I nod and for the next thirty minutes Polnia and I develop a plan for this risky mission, afterwards I get moving as I get to my armor and check it over making sure it's functional. "Damn it I should have stolen some of their armor a year ago so I could have put it in my armor, I'll have to improvise a bit once I get in."

"Need help with anything Vel?" I turn around and see Destia standing fitted out in her armor and equipment ready to go and I nod to her as I move to her and hold her close for a moment to calm my nerves a bit.

"Just seeing you helps immensely, but there is something else that you would be vital for." I say as I sit down and pull up my omni-tool. "I need to develop a tactical cloak, it might mean the difference between life or death, I know we only have about three and a half hours but I think if we put our heads together, we can put something together." She thinks for a moment before nodding.

"Alright, let's see what we can do." After that we spent three hours working on the cloak and attempting to get it at least functional, we spent the last thirty minutes checking on our weapons and taking a moment to prepare our minds for the mission that filled the whole ship with dread.

With only an hour left before arrival I get into my armor and get my helmet on which looks like a Mandalorian helmet but longer and adjusted to a Turian's head. Polnia gathers us up and explains the plan to everyone. "Alright everyone you better be ready cause we're about to reach our destination." She clears her throat before continuing as she crosses her arms and I can feel the tension filling everyone. "Now then here's the plan, we'll park the ship in an open space outside the predicted range of the base sensors, afterwards we'll make our way to the base where will start our preparation. Vakarian will be the first to infiltrate and we'll be on standby till he signals me, after he signals us, we'll breach from two points, Alpha will take the main entrance that has been weakened and Beta will take the secondary entrance which will be a wall that we'll breach, the two teams will work through the base till they meet in the central room. Once the base is confirmed to be clear, we'll clean it of any information we can find then blow the place to bits. Understood?" Everyone nods but Maxus speaks up for once which is a rarity.

"After the signal and breach what will Vakarian be doing, you never discussed that ma'am." She nods in understanding.

"My mistake, after the breach Vakarian will make his way to the central area and assist in clearing out enemies. He'll be mainly on support duty once we breach." Maxus understands and nods and the room gets silent as all we can do is wait and prepare for this mission.

The time has finally arrived and we touch down and turn off the ship. Polnia gets moving and we follow her as the ship closes behind us. We walk for about ten minutes and we finally spot the base causing me to take a deep breath as I look to Polnia and she nods to me signaling for me to get to work.

I take off getting closer before seeing security cams and using my omni-tool to hack and temporally deactivate them quickly moving to the base as I hack the door and find a decent amount of resistance. I break through before long and the door opens up, I take a breath as I activate my cloak giving me three seconds before it shuts off. I run in as quiet as possible as I spot multiple enemies and just as I get to cover my cloak cuts out before it's even three seconds. Well I suppose it is a prototype, and there's only so much you can do in three hours.

I overhear some of the units in this place talking. "Hey rookie, are you just going to sit there with your thumb up your ass or are you going to watch outside like you were ordered to!" The rookie scrambles, seems like he was trying to take a break, lucky for me. I think as the rookie runs outside as I tag him on my Hud which allows the rest of the team to see him as well. "Fucking idiot, we get a report that those plated birds are cracking down on us and going to attack us soon and you're trying to take a break!" He yells out and I tag him and notice his voice and what he said, he's a human. I get moving, going slow and getting into the central area as I speak quietly into my coms.

"Ma'am it seems they were expecting us, and the base seems to be on alert, I can feel the tension of the soldiers in here, I'm in and I'm setting up right now." I find a small hidden spot and set Patriot up getting him moving as I send him out as I tag him as a small blue marker. As I do, I get a response from Polnia.

"Understood be careful and find your targets, the marking is working correctly we can see the two you marked." I get moving and vault over a box as I see my first target, checking my surroundings before getting to base generator as I set up a small bomb behind it. With that done I have two more targets and turn around seeing a big hulking Krogan. They have every species don't they, I thought they hated everyone!

I climb up a few boxes that allows me to get to the second story and avoid the massive Krogan I didn't want to fight as Patriot suddenly returns to me and I notice that he highlighted the insides of two rooms. I see one rooms that has multiple guns, armors and weapons. The other one has a system and multiple computers that clearly is the command room. I decide to target the armory first and quickly rush over to it as I see three enemies inside, deactivating Patriot for a moment as I call Flint out and give him his orders, I look around outside making sure that nobody sees me as Flint sneaks into the armory and lets out an area controlled shock that hits and stuns two enemies as I move in and cut off the last soldier's voice with a blow to the neck before slamming a knife into his head through a weaker point in his helmet ending him swiftly as I do the same to the two stunned units.

I take a breath and set up the second bomb in the armory before leaving, getting rid of Flint and calling Patriot out once more to spot for me as he sees two enemies moving into the control room, the pissed off Human from earlier and the massive Krogan. I send Patriot inside as I wait outside the room trying to wait for the two to leave since now there's four enemies in there and I can't take that without setting off the base, and I listen to what they're talking about as the other two, one looking to be another Krogan and the other a Batarian. The Batarian begins speaking.

"Alright men as you know we're expecting an attack soon so I want you to wake up the men in the barracks and get them ready for a fight understood?" They nod and leave as I activate my cloak and hold my breath hoping my cloak lasts long enough. They get past me and I get out of view for them as my cloak lasts just long enough as I know I have to get moving quickly. I call back Patriot and start moving inside as the Batarian activates his comms and begins talking making me about to move in and attack as he speaks. "Hello sir, preparations are being made, it seems the general's advancements have caught military attention." Annoyingly I can't hear the other person but one thing he says catches my attention.

"The artifact is being put to good use, more and more people are seeing the truth of this filthy galaxy." Artifact? The truth? There's no way he means Reaper leftovers, right? He ends his comms soon after and I take my chance as I rush him and attack attempting to stab and end him immediately but he reacts in a split second and manages to divert my attack to his shoulder. He then attempts to yell out but I slam my head into his stupidly uncovered one cracking his head, but he persists and grabs his knife and attempts to stab me but I back up in time. He reaches for his comms again and I rush in to attack using a new addition to my suit, and with a flick of my wrists activating some thrusters on my boots the one on the back of my boot boosting my leg forward and the one on the bottom increasing the speed of my leg as I slam my knee into his gut, the extra speed increasing the impact.

I take his moment of breathlessness and pain to stab him once more this time in the neck, taking him out as I take a quick second to catch my breath. I then plant the final sabotaging bomb in the command room as I rush out and activate my comms. "Commander the attack is ready! Move now!"

"Understood!" I hear some orders on the other side. "Sulilin with me Ursiril and Quirinus go and breach move!" I hear movement on the other sides as I rush out of the room and activate the bombs destroying the armory, power and command center and effectively their communication. I turn on my night vision and tag all the new enemies as I find and predict at least 15 different enemies, five of which seem to have caught in the explosions mainly the ones that were in barracks.

I get to work on distracting them as I call out Flint and have him activate his shield covering me as I move and attack, starting out by pulling out my Avenger and opening fire on the group of units forcing them into cover, a few start to return fire beating down on Flint's shield as I simply try to wear their shields down, finally as I can see Flint's shield almost gone, my omni-tool is ready to activate another ability and I quickly do so, sending out a flash bang as I get into an actual cover and manage to break the shields and take down two enemies, while three others are blinded and deaf from the blast and barely a second afterwards I see Alpha enter and shoot down two flanked units and I see five more enemies pop up on my Hud near the other barrack area by Beta's breach point.

I notice this and also notice a blind and pissed off Krogan that's currently charging towards my cover, I roll out of the path but the boxes that Krogan just slammed away slams into me and knocks me to the ground forcing me to take a moment to recover as the Krogan recovers from the flashbang and sees me, still pissed off as I start to stand he charges at me as I hear over the comms from Destia.

"What the hell is Beta doing! They still haven't breached, there's too many enemies!" Just after hearing this and unable to dodge as a Krogan slams right into me and pins me against a wall and causes me to gasp out as I can no longer breath. I slam my arms into his head but he doesn't budge, I struggle and try to reach back attempting to grab my shotgun but unable to as I grab his head with both hands and use the last thing I can think of. I start to send shocks straight into his body using omni-tasers but ramped up to full force, he continues to try and break me before finally forced to let go and falling back looking like a weird cooked Krogan. I feel my ribs and can tell something is likely broken.

I move a bit slower back into cover as I send an overload into an enemy that's shooting at Alpha allowing them to easily take him down as I hear another explosion as I see the second breach point finally being taken down as I see a blue marker move in.

We start to better, with another surprise to the enemies they have a hard time reacting, soon being only five left as I move in and help attack throwing out overloads and sabotaging a sneaky Batarian like the one we saw in the first mission, I soon see Tib rushing over to me as I notice his hand movement telling me to move, I do so with a roll that pains me due to my ribs as I turn around and see Tib blast a cooked looking Krogan. "Shit forgot to finish him off."

"Don't worry about it Vel, no matter what I got your back!" I hear him yell to me as Tib turns around as we both get into cover making me smile as I see an image of the friend I made in boot camp.

Not long after we finish off the last enemy, the other big Krogan with two close shotgun blasts from me and Tib. After that we finally take a moment to catch our breaths as Destia is able to make it over to us, nobody lets go of their weapons as Maxus sprints towards us.

"Quirinus! Hurry follow me! The commander was injured!" Time slows down as we rush over to Polnia and see her down on the ground unmoving and as Destia moves to inspect her we trail back giving her space to treat the respected commander with Maxus further behind.

"Sulilin! Where was she hit!" She says in clear distress and panic.

"I don't know! She got hit and went down! I didn't have the chance to see where she was shot!" Me and Tib get closer to help see where she was shot when I get a sinking filling in my gut as Flint gives me a false alarm about a moving enemy making me turn around to see the enemy and seeing no body on the ground moving, I do however notice Maxus holding a Carnifex pistol pointed to Destia's head. Time might as well have been frozen for me as my body moves faster than I thought was possible as grab my shotgun and fire. Unfortunately, I heard two shots in that moment, one from me and one from Maxus. I see him sent to the ground from the blast as I hear a yell from Destia as she falls to the ground.

"What in the-" I turn around quickly and see where the shot hit, not in the head but in the back as I quickly move.

"Tib grab Destia and get moving towards the ship" I say as I turn Polnia over and see a clear bullet hole in the back of her head, the place we didn't check yet. I then grab the prepared bomb on her hip and set it up in the central room, taking one more look at Maxus's corpse before grabbing Polnia's body and running to the ship. I place her in medical as I get to the cockpit starting up the ship before looking down at the damned base and activating the bomb and seeing it blow sky high. Taking off and getting moving as I set the ship up and take a deep breath as I set up the directions for the Citadel as I grind my mandibles and fly us through a mass relay and sending us on course for the Citadel, autopilot taking the lead.

I could even process time once I saw Maxus's betrayal and what felt like hours was only ten minutes as I make my way to medical, seeing Tib inside with Destia.

"Hey Vel... I did all I could, thank spirits for that first aid training in boot camp right? I nod as I clasp my hands together as I see her taking deep breaths and shuddering clearly struggling to breath as I move and hold her hand as it feels like my heart is being sent through a slaughterhouse. "Vel, I'm sorry, I know it's been complicated for the past year, but I'm here for you, no matter what happens in the coming hours." I feel tense as he says that, a mixture of happiness and fear filling me as we spend the next hour and a half in silence before we get a notification from the ship saying we have arrived. "I'll bring us in Vel."

I nod and take a deep breath as I look at Destia "Just hang in there my mate."

Once the ship docks we rush Destia to the hospital and explain to the doctors her condition before they rush her into the operating room and a human nurse comes out. "Excuse me sir."

I notice her and turn to her. "Yes ma'am? How is she?"

She looks at her omni-tool and report before explaining "We don't know yet, all we know is that the shot is deep and is close to multiple vital parts we aren't sure exactly what it hit or damaged yet, but the doctors are saying not to expect and concreate answers or results for at least four hours, we will call for you when the time comes." She then leaves as I sit down with Tib next to me.

"I'll go ahead and take Polnia's body to the place where her family can retrieve and bury her, you just stay here ok Vel?" I nod not having the energy or mindset to want to speak as I'm stuck in thoughts as I'm forced to wait and see what happens. Our talks, time together and precious moments all flow into my mind as I can't even know if she'll make it out of this but I also decide to get treated for my broken ribs, if nothing but to pass the time.

Five painful hours later we finally get a report from the same nurse. "Hello sir, good news! She survived the wound and surgery but apparently it was close." I let out a sigh of relief as Tib gives me a pat on the shoulder reassuring me as he gives me a smile. "However, the bad news is... she was hit in the spine, and now she is currently paralyzed, the good news is that she still has some albeit very limited feeling in her legs and she will be able to eventually fully recover." I can't help but smile at that news, it was honestly the best news I could have had in this situation.

"When will she be let out? Also, when can I visit" I say curious about how long it will take.

"About 14 days, to recover and do some rehabilitation, though it might take about a month for full recovery of her body and you can likely visit tomorrow." I nod in response to her answer and shake her hand.

"Thank you, you have been incredibly helpful" I say as I pull away my gloved hand and walk out of the place with Tib.

Tib brings up something I completely forgot about. "We need to report to the General on what happened, you want to do it or me?" I point to myself getting a nervous chuckle from him. "Good luck Vel."

I return to the ship and get into the comms room patching it into a line to the General that Polnia reported to. "Ah, Corporal Vakarian why are you currently reporting? Has Commander Polnia died?" I nod to him before speaking and explaining what happened in the mission. "So Sulilin became a traitor? I'm guessing you don't know why otherwise you would have told me."

"Well, we will send Commander Polnia's body to her family. Now as for your team, you're currently without a leader and your highest ranked member is out of commission, that puts you in the light to take over the team, so will you take the position?" I look at him and let out a sigh before responding.

"No sir, I do not wish to take the position on the account that I seek to resign from the military" I can see a bit of a surprised look on his face. "I believe the position is better suited for Corporal Ursiril sir, he assisted in the mission and was a vital part of it and will continue to be a great soldier that will only improve from here.

I can see him thinking as his mandibles click and move a bit. "I understand, I recognize your resignation and after a horrible mission I am understanding but disappointed in your choices. Notify Ursiril that I will require him in two hours." He says before shutting off the comms as I finally feel a bit free now that I'm not bound or talking to that man anymore.

I find Tib soon after this. "Hey Tib, I reported to the General and explained what happened. I also resigned from the military which he allowed due to my performance." He nods already knowing that I wanted to leave the military, this experience only enabling me to easier. "Also, he wants to talk to you in two hours, likely to talk about the team and who is going to lead it, whether it's you or another soldier they can spare."

"I see, hope you recommended me" He says and I nod giving him a smile as he chuckles in response, his earlier self truly shining now. "You know, when we were fighting on that mission, I felt incredibly angry, but I also knew my duty and once I saw you get slammed against the wall and everyone struggling to succeed in the mission, I realized something. I've wasted so much time on my anger that I haven't consider so much more, and when I found out Polnia had been shot and once everything went down and I saw you in distress I realized that there are more important things than my anger."

His small speech gets a large reaction from me as I give him a quick hug and pull away. "I'm just glad that the three of us are alive and that I have my friend back, today I'm going to take the small victories." He nods and lets out a smile of his own as he runs off ready to talk to the general as I decide I need to make a visit.

I drag my body to a house I haven't visited in a while, and after all the stress finally noticing the pain in my chest from my broken ribs that need to heal, knocking on the door and waiting for a response before finally seeing my father at the door. "Hey dad, good to see you!" I say chuckling as he lets me inside knowing now more than ever that what I need is my family.


	7. Moving On

Today is **February 5th 2168 CE** It has been a month since the mission that destroyed our team and today is finally the day of Polnia Agnian's funeral. We traveled to Palaven and I'm currently pushing Destia along in her wheelchair, since she still needs time to recover. We both take our places and sit through the funeral to pay our respects. Multiple people come up to speak, some family and some officers that knew her creating a mix of heartfelt speeches and generic ones. Before long the official ceremony is over and everyone is getting ready to leave when I'm suddenly stopped by two Turians, a man and a woman.

"Hello, may we have a word with you? You're Vakarian correct?" The male says as I nod before letting go of Destia's chair and turning around.

"Yes, I am, is it ok if she stays with us? She's still injured from the mission." I say with a neutral tone as I look at them and see their facial marking, the same as Polnia's. "I'm assuming you're the commander's parents?"

"Yes, and of course she can stay, I'm not going to force you to send her on her own." He says as I look at him and the mother and I can see and feel the pain they're going through.

Destia speaks up at this "No sir, it's fine I can wheel myself back to the station, I'll see you there Velius." I move to her quickly and press my head to hers for a moment before letting her go, I can only assume she didn't want to potentially intrude on what these two have to say.

"I'm incredibly sorry for your lost... she was an incredible commander and a remarkable soldier. I truly wish there was more we could have done." I say attempting to as respectful as possible to the two grieving parents.

He nods before speaking once more and I can hear is sub harmonics strained and pained as he does. "Thank you, but frankly we've heard that a thousand times today, we're actually here on account of Polnia, for multiple reasons in fact." He says as the mother speaks up.

"Yes, Polnia talked to us often even while she was out and moving, she talked to us as much as she could about things that weren't classified. One of the things that came up often, is you Vakarian." I feel my brow raise in confusion at this, I know we talked a bit but I didn't think I was too notable, that wasn't my plan at least. My thoughts are broken as I respond.

"Really? I feel surprised about this and honored, I can only hope she said good things, it would be a shame if I turned out she gave you two her frustration about me" I say attempting a small joke that gets a chuckle from the two.

"No nothing like that, if anything she had praise, though she did call you often a weird and confusing Turian." I chuckle at that news, not too surprised. "But the most notable thing she said was that in the future she saw you being a true leader, both in peace and crisis." I feel taken back at that, that's high praise and one I wasn't expecting.

"Thank you, ma'am hearing that she had that praise for me is an honor, and I will do my best to live up to it." They nod as the father pulls out a sheathed weapon that I recognize.

"She did have a request that she told us long ago, she told us this when she received this weapon. She said that no matter what that she wanted to never be forgotten and to leave a legacy, so she said if she died to give her Talon to someone who deserved it and could be trusted." He put the impressive sword in my hands and I feel it, even though the scabbard and he continue. "She spoke great things about you and I could feel that she expected great things from you, and I feel the same just from speaking with you, call it a hunch but I feel like you will put this blade to good use."

I can't help but pause for a moment, dumbfounded at this honor. "Thank you so much sir, I swear on my spirit that I won't disappoint you or the commander." He nods before patting my shoulder.

"I trust that you won't, so keep her memory alive." That's the last thing he says before he and Mrs. Agnian leave, and I'm left holding this sword and I know that I'll keep her memory alive, I have to.

I make my way to the station and find Destia, the sword and scabbard in my hand as we prepare to make our way back to the Citadel. "Did they give you that sword?" I nod and sit next to her as we get on the ship as I let out a breath, I didn't know I was holding.

"Yes, it's Polnia's sword apparently, she didn't want it to just be put away and rust, she wanted to keep in use, so her parents chose me, they decided to trust me with her weapon in hope I'd put it to good use.

"I'm sure you will Vel" I nod as hold onto her chair, unable to really embrace her while she's in the chair as we sit through the ride and take a long rest after an emotional evening.

_**March 16**__**th**__** 2168 CE**_

So, it's been about five months now and Destia has returned to working, with a few restrictions, mainly being that she can't do field work and is stuck being a ship medic, I can tell it's eating away at her since she can't leave the ship she's been stationed on.

"I'm able to walk and move without problem now so I don't know why they won't let me into the field like before." I say as she's currently video calling me as I sigh and respond.

"Well I can say this much, you've only been walking for about two months now so you're still a bit fresh, and besides I can see your body shaking as you stand right now." She notices her shaking body and sits down giving me an annoyed look. "You know for a medic you really don't pay attention to your own health." I say with a joking manner giving her a smile.

"Oh yeah laugh it up, but I guess that's fair, I just hope they let me onto the field soon, I'm getting locked up so badly I feel like a Quarian in their suits." I raise a brow at the comparison which is quite amusing for some reason. "Anyway, it looks like I'm being called so I'll be stuck working for a while on two idiots that decided to fight, so I'll talk to you later, love you. Vel."

"Love you too Destia." I say as the call ends and I sit back and let out a sigh as I look at the walls of my work room that are riddled with ideas and blueprints, the main ones being the two weapons I developed. Since they're the first of their kind I took the liberty of naming them. I pick up the weapon in the form of a rifle with the word Valkryie engraved on the side, activating a program on my omni-tool I watch the rifle shift and turn into a sniper as I see the longer range scope come out and look down the sights to make sure it works correctly before returning it to its rifle form and putting it down. I then pick up my pistol and look the word Rapture engraved on the grip of the weapon, I make it transform as well and hold it with two hands as I completes the change into a shotgun. "These two turned out well."

I put it down it watch as it turns back into a pistol as I look at the prototypes currently scattered on the floor half of them stuck mid-way and mistakenly developed, it took a bit of time and practice but I was finally able to create those two, sighing as I look at the ceiling. "I need to relax." After leaving the military I'm currently devoting all my time to preparing and developing myself for the hard battle against the Reapers. "I feel disgusting." I say before getting up and taking a shower.

About an hour later I grab my Rapture and conceal it before walking out onto the Citadel wards in my simple hoodie and pants and checking my account to see how many credits I saved up and see I only have about 5,000 credits and given that my rent is 500 credits a month I only have about ten months' worth of rent left, I walk into Flux just needing a little bit of time to get my mind off the preparation for devastation. As my thoughts are racing, I take my seat and order a light drink, not wanting to get blackout drunk, especially not alone.

For a few hours I have a few shots and sit back to enjoy the music that is the classic electronic music Mass Effect is known for in their clubs. While I'm sitting and relaxing with my eyes closed, I don't even notice a scarlet haired woman sit next to me. "Hey there bud you still alive?" I hear a small chuckle after that.

"I would hope so, it would be a shame to be dead and not know it." I say before opening my eyes to see who is currently talking to me, and I have to contain my shock and mild panic. Before me I see goddamn Commander Shepard nearly looking like the classic Female Shepard, we all know aside from her deep purple eyes and long styled hair compared to the normal short hair she rocks for default.

"I would have to agree with that, though it's a bit unusual to see someone sleeping in Flux, unless they're knocked out drunk." I nod unable to dispute this as I see she already has the N7 hoodie that was a personal favorite of mine in the games.

"Very true, I suppose I have to ask what brings you here, I'm guessing you're like most of the people here and simply bored and was searching for a bit of fun." I say as I see Flux is actually quite vacant today before looking back at Shepard wanting to learn as much as I can about her.

"Yep, finally got some shore leave, been too damn long in my opinion." Ok, good she brought up military before me that makes my job easier.

"Oh? You're in service? I suppose that makes sense with the N7 hoodie you have, so what are you? A Commander?" I say trying to find out just where Shepard is in her career and I can see her brow raise clearly curious about me asking for her rank.

"Nope, still a Lieutenant, what are you? Only fair I know your rank since you asked mine." She says as she leans forward intrigued and I give a light chuckle.

"I'm nothing special, in fact I left already, I was only a Corporal though." I say hoping that satisfies her curiosity. "Also, yes, I know it's strange for a Turian to leave so early, but I just felt like I had a different purpose." I say trying to cover my bases.

"Well I suppose you're a unique one." Her omni-tool suddenly dings and she takes a look before letting out a loud groan of annoyance.

"Duty calls?" I say as she nods and pushes her glass back to the bartender.

"Yep, only two days of shore leave and now they think we need to get back to work, I suppose I can't complain too much." She says before getting her stuff and pausing for a moment. "Oh, right that reminds me, what's your name, I'm Cassandra Shepard." I stand up and realize our height difference as she can't be more than 5ft 5in while I'm 7ft.

"I'm Velius Vakarian, it was nice to meet you Shepard." I shake her hand before she takes off and I let out a sigh hoping I didn't fuck myself over somehow in the future.

I return home and lock the door before taking my hoodie and shirt off before laying down in the bed as think about what to do next, checking my omni-tools before remembering the current plan. "That's right, I need to go to Omega." I say before falling asleep and moving onto the next day.

"I wake up about nine hours later oversleeping a little as I get up and do my morning routine, not having to deal with bed hair is very nice I have to say. I finish my morning and gather my equipment taking a breath after yesterday's run in with Shepard. Putting on my armor as I make sure to lock my door behind me and making sure everything is working properly, calling out Flint and Patriot as I check their systems. "You two working well?" Flint pops out his shield in response and Patriot simply flaps his wings rapidly to say yes. "Great!" I call them both back, with the addition of a second omni-tool I was able to summon both of them without overloading my systems.

I travel to the station and pay for a trip to Omega, it takes about a half day of travel but I finally arrive, the ship quickly leaves afterword and I start to walk into what is arguably a circle of hell in space.

"Hey! Turian, have you paid the fee?" I hear as I look to my left and see a two Humans and a Salarian, god I didn't want to deal with this first thing.

"Yeah, I paid the damn ship, as far I as remember I don't remember you being a part of that." I say as look at the three and see their low tier equipment, I could just kill them but I would rather not kill three people first thing on this damn place.

"Don't you know? Eclipse is taxing everyone who comes onto the station, and those who don't listen" He pulls out his pistol and shoots the ground in a poor attempt to make his point as I simply sigh.

"Fine, I don't want trouble here you go." I say getting closer before messing with my omni-tool and sending out a mass overload shocking the three of them as I break the Salarian's helmet with Polnia's Talon and knock his head into the wall before kicking the other human in the knee to force him down before taking shocking him harshly with two omni-tasers, leaving just the leader as he finally recovers but before he can even point his gun at me my Rapture is point straight at the back his head.

"You know you would have been more convincing if you hadn't brought of the Eclipse, your armor barely looks like theirs, you're lucky I don't feel like killing you three as a welcoming move, so take your buddies and fuck off." I say as he quickly leaves his friends behind and runs away. "What a surprise." I say as I activate a program on my omni-tool and see it work as I see 500 credits add to my account. "Wow a little hacking program and I can already pay an extra month of rent." I move on as I get into a relatively safe area which happens to be the Afterlife club.

Once I walk in, I can see multiple eyes looking at me, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised both a newcomer and a person with shiny black armor and helmet. I find a seat and start to work on my omni-tool as I figure out a plan. My main reason for being here being investigating The White Death, and there's one person I can think of that's basically guaranteed to know something about them, Aria T'Loak. I spend about an hour inside the Afterlife as I get a plan, if I gain a name and reputation word should spread to Aria and give me the chance to talk to her.

So, I got to work, I try to remember the layout of Omega from the games, though that's not extremely reliable due to the jump in size compared to the games. I look around in the area outside the Afterlife and notice some blood covered armor, mainly Vorcha which means Blood Pack. I don't mess with the Vorcha as I search for a certain group of people that I want to gain info on as I walk around deeper into Omega and finally spot them, Blue Suns.

They're my best bet to get started and gain info, I know that even their recruits take part in smuggling and illegal trades and we all know that recruits tend to be the biggest talkers. I walk over to the group that's discussing something I can't quite hear yet spotting at least five different Turians. I move and get nearby and look busy as I pretend to work on my omni-tool as I listen in.

"All ready recruit? Don't be an idiot and follow orders and everything will go smoothly." I hear him say as I slip Patriot out where nobody can see him as I see Patriot activate his new cloak as I assume direct control of him. It seems I caught the end of the conversation since they quickly leave after the obvious leader.

I keep Patriot following after them at a higher height keeping him close to the ceiling as they go into a warehouse, I search and mark everyone inside, totaling at 20 men, it seems that the five I found was actually four recruits and that leader was giving a pep talk. In the warehouse stands at ten Blue Suns and ten of looks like Aria's men if I had to guess. I cloak Patriot once more before sending him close by but still covered as I listen in, closing my omni-tool as I get out of the open and get closer to the warehouse, looking around to make sure attention is off me as I climb up and get onto the roof of the warehouse searching around for a entrance as I hear them speak.

"So, are these the packages Aria ordered for?" The Turian in front nods as he opens one of the packages which seems to be an order of weapons mods most clearly being illegal, he then opens a second package that contains a drug I don't recognize as I finally find a nice window, activating my improved cloak which lasts for 12 seconds, slipping in through the window that opens up silently. I get on a platform that gives me an easy vantage point as I look in on the trade, as I quickly formulate a plan. I hear the Turian speak once more.

"Now then, you've seen the product now give us our payment and we'll be on our way, give Aria my thanks in advance." The Batarian rolls his multiple eyes which looks almost comical as I position myself and see Patriot has found the source of power to the warehouse. The Batarian hands the payment to the Turian and it is handed to his second in command from what I can see as I have Patriot shut off the power and lights in that moment as I take out Valkryie in its sniper form and quickly shoot my round straight into the leading Batarian which starts an all-out panic.

"Damn you Blue Suns!" I hear as I see a soldier in the back of Aria's group fire at the Blue Suns troops, who in turn quickly roll away from the fire they can barely see, even the Batarians who can see a bit better in the dark panic and move into cover as an all-out firefight starts. The cries of the Turian leader being ignored.

"What the hell! We never fired damnit!" I take advantage of the fight and commotion taking shots at them as they're distracted at fighting each other. There's only about ten men left now six of Aria's men and only four Blue Suns left. I feel like the numbers are low enough as I see the light finally come back and calling Patriot back and gettign rid of him as I get behind cover and put Valkryie away and pull out Rapture and drop down behind Aria's men quickly blasting one away with Rapture before cloaking as I see two look at their suddenly dead ally, getting behind one and kicking his knee as I reach around and stab under the helmet and into his head with Polnia's Talon as I drop him and blast another Batarian. With that done that leaves three more of Aria's men and four Blue Suns, but now they all know I'm here.

I see the focus of Aria's men shift to me as I take cover behind a few crates, calling out Flint as I have him summon his shield and cover me before charging at the remaining three who are grouped up, I blast one with Rapture but his shields block it at my current range, not able to use a mass overload due to Flint I send a tech net that wraps up one Batarian. Once I do, I see the Blue Suns have begun to fire on me as well and Flint's shield is barely holding as I slip into cover and order Flint to fire at the Blue Suns with suppresses them and stops their fire as I focus back on Aria's men, sending out a Sabotage which stops one man from firing and hurts him as well. I see the first Batarian still struggling to get rid of the net so I focus on the remaining threat, charging him as he fires at me with a rifle which lowers my shields dangerously as I finally get close enough to blast him and devastate his shields and body. I switch hands with Rapture as I summon an omni-blade and finish off the second Batarian before sending a final shot into the Batarian trapped in the tech net which overheats Rapture and forces me to put it away.

I look at my Hud and see two enemies remaining as I jump over a few crates and get to the Turian leader and stab him in the back with the Talon ending him and leaving just one enemy left, a recruit just like I needed. I pull out Valkryie and bark an order to the recruit.

"Hands up now or I won't hesitate to put you down!" The recruit complies very quickly and I put my gun away as I have Flint keep an eye on him and set to fire if he attempts to attack me. "Now then, my demand is very simple give me the info you have on Blue Suns warehouses."

He quickly shakes his head. "I don't have that info sir! I believe the sergeant there had a layout of a few warehouses!" I turn around and scan the Turian's omni-tool and snatch the information and download it to my omni-tool, pulling up the map to see a few highlighted areas detailed with weapons and mods.

"Thank you, that helps plenty, now then time to finish things up." I say walking back over to the new recruit and look at him, I can see he is young, likely similar in age to me. "I don't know your story but I suggest you skip town and get off this hell hole. Find a different line of work and stop being an idiot." I say before pulling out Rapture and shooting right by his head at the wall. "If you don't, you're not going to last for more than a day, I promise you that." I swear I see his face go pale after I fire, he then runs away and I can only hope he listens to my recommendation.

I recall Flint and look at the packages of smuggled items planting a few bombs on all but one package, taking it for myself along with the money that Aria's men had brought before activating my cloak and leaving swiftly as I send the place sky high, destroying 90% of the trade goods while the other 10% is with me.

I rent an apartment on Omega, needing a base of operations, no matter how crappy it is. I store the money and materials in a hidden space of the floor that is barely hanging together. Over the next three days I spend my time by gathering info to who might be most connected to The White Death, which ends up fruitless. I also raided four storage centers of the Blue Suns, cutting into their income and getting the gang panicked. I can see how a good amount of their soldiers are feeling worried and uneasy, which is also seen in their patrols.

It feels very satisfying to see them worried, however what's more problematic is that they are increasing their security, increasing their security to the point that there's at least 30 men per warehouse, most of them looking experienced and well geared. So, I've had to stop my operations temporally to plan things out. Since stopping my attacks it's been two days, both days I've had Patriot scout the Blue Suns area and the dock to Omega to keep myself up to date.

I haven't been completely inactive however; I've disrupted more deals that involved Aria's men and collected the materials and money. During this time, I have run into the Blood Pack which I found more difficulty with than the Blue Suns simply due to their brute force. These deals led me to an important discovery which is that the White Death is connected to all the gangs, and Aria. I found this out when I saw a White Death member meeting with Aria herself along with a few soldiers mixed in along the ranks of Blood Pack and Blue Suns groups, likely for favors are closer relations.

Today I'm going to be taking a risk and I'm going to try to make contact with Aria, which if I'm not careful could get me killed. I grab a prepared bag full of various materials I've raided from the deals along with the credit chips. I leave the apartment cloaked, leaving nothing behind as I do and make my way to the Afterlife. As I make my way into the Afterlife, I get stopped by two Afterlife security, they look me over checking my armor and helmet before nodding to each other.

"You, go up and meet Aria now, she is expecting you, I wouldn't stall." I nod in agreement as I walk up the stairs and see the infamous Queen of Omega herself, Aria T'loak. Along with Aria I see two soldiers covering her just like in the game.

"Hello mystery man, come and sit, I believe you and I have some business to speak about." I look at her sitting, relaxed and confident as expected. Her face details a mix of interest and anger signaling I'm not completely screwed as I take a seat across from her, setting my bag next to me. "Now then, you have some explaining to do, mainly on why I shouldn't kill you right here and now for fucking with my income." I look at her directly through my helmet my face is hidden but my body language isn't, I lean back and attempt to sell myself as relaxed.

"Well, I can tell already that you know I pose as a potentially valuable ally otherwise you would have shot me on sight." I say as I call out a cloaked Flint before continuing keeping myself safe from trigger happy guards, I pull my bag out and open it up, luckily the guards seem simply alert but not about to shoot me. I pour out its contents onto the table showing a bit of material from all the raids I've done. "Hear you go, that's a little bit of everything you were supposed to get, all for the low price of a few guards." I say as I also pull out all the credit chips and slide them over to her effectively returning all her money.

She looks at everything before smirking and snapping her fingers as a few Batarian's gather the materials and credit chips. "Well then, count me surprised, well I'm more inclined to feel less pissed at you, however before we continue, I must ask, who are you." she says as I have to quickly come up with a name.

"I desire to keep my identity at least partly secret, makes some jobs a lot easier." I say as I consider some options as one comes to mind remembering a special mythological creature from my past life. "For now, just call me Phoenix." She raises a brow but accepts it.

"Alright, Phoenix, here's the situation you disrupted multiple of my deals with the gangs here, however you returned my money and even secured a good amount of materials for me, and due to the fact I agree and believe you can be useful I'm willing to let you go." I let out an internal sigh of relief glad that things went well so far. "But, Phoenix In the future you better remember the one and golden rule of Omega, don't fuck with Aria." She says as she leans forward nearly bumping against my head, before leaning back again as I nod in agreement.

"Understood, don't fuck with the Queen of Omega." I say as I get up preparing to leave as I get ready to speak about the reason, I wanted to speak to her. "There is one thing I need to ask you about before I leave, It's about the White Death." I say as she seemingly narrows her eyes.

"I suppose they have gotten more infamous recently, very well ask what you need." She says as she looks back the Afterlife clearly couldn't care less about this group.

"I know you have dealing with them, so I wanted to ask do you know where they're located?" She looks back at me looking a bit surprised at the question.

"I don't know an exact location; however, I do know general areas where they operate, including here on Omega." She says taking a breath before continuing. "Here they operate deep in Blue Suns Territory, it's one of the reasons the two parties are as well-equipped as they are" She continues on after taking a shot of some type of Alcohol. "As for outside Omega, they seem to operating somewhere Between the Artemis Tau and Voyager Cluster, as for specifics that's up to you to find out."

I nod before speaking. "Thank you for the info, that's beyond helpful." I say before starting to leave. Just as I'm going down the stairs, I hear her call out to me.

"Goodbye for now Phoenix, I'm sure it won't be long before we meet again." She says as I leave the Afterlife club, my heart pounding away as I'm finally out of that situation and came out with heavily important information. As I leave the Afterlife and prepare to return to my apartment, I see something that has me in shock, Nihlus Kryik, a Turian I expected only to hear about, never to see or meet the Turian infamous for dying on Eden Prime.

What's worse about seeing him is the fact that I'm in an area with limited space, and he's charging straight at me, I can't shoot him and risk fucking something up so I simply activate and shoot a overload at him which connected but doesn't affect him due to his Spectre level armor. He grabs and slams me against a wall as he pulls out a shotgun and points it pointblank at my head trapping me.

"You just met with Aria; chances are you know something. So, spill it, what do you know about the White Death." I look at him confused, why the hell does a Spectre need info about them.

"Satisfy my curiosity would you, and tell me why a Spectre wants information about the group I'm currently hunting down." I say trying to slowly defuse the situation as I see his mandibles shift showing his curiosity.

"Well, if you're hunting them, I'm sure you know they've grown infamous in the past years, and enough of a pain that the Turian Hierarchy has requested the council help solve the problem." That explains it, and I'm surprised they didn't do it sooner.

"Look I do have information on their operations, but we're on the same side so could you kindly let go of me and stop pointing a shotgun in my face." He lets me down trusting me enough to move, god thank you, he keeps the shotgun pointed at me. "Thank you, it's a bit dangerous to speak in the wide open, I have an apartment rented, if you follow me, we can talk there. Keep the shotgun trained on me if you want." I say as he nods and I lead him to the apartment of which he sees plans and connections posted on the wall as he has by this point put his shotgun away.

I pull out two chairs and we sit down. "First off, I'll go ahead and tell you that the White Death does have a base of operations here on Omega, along with dealings with the gangs and Aria herself, tech and weapons I believe." I say as I take off my helmet showing my face, knowing that I can trust Nilhus. "Also, my name is Velius Vakarian, since you've been nice enough not to shoot me in the face." I say with a slight bit of annoyance

"Nihlus Kryik I figured as much; I can't go on a blind search since that would take too long." He says as I can tell he's frustrated with the situation which I can't blame him, knowing first hand that this group is a pain to find.

"Yeah, they've made their base of operations somewhere in Blue Suns Territory and the two have close relations, I'd expect a fight from the both of them but as for information on where they are, that's all I have." I say laying back taking a moment to relax as he takes in the information. I don't want to tell him too much yet, if possible I'd like to have him never come close to the source of the group, the less people at risk of indoctrination the better.

"I see, and both groups are well equipped, that makes this... more difficult." He says though I'm pretty sure he's talking to himself at this point.

"I have an idea, let's work together and eliminate them from Omega, we have a better chance at taking them out if we do, I have experience with them and I'm a good soldier, I can help guide you with fighting them." I say, knowing that the two of us makes this attack easier, if not actually doable

"I tend to work better alone, however this is an enemy I have little information about, if you're serious about hunting the White Death then there are worse allies I could make, just don't slow me down."

I nod in agreement. "I can promise you, I'm not going to slow anyone down," I say reaching to him and presenting my hand which he shakes. Only a few moments later and we are starting to prepare to explore and find the base. Hopefully with this incredible addition, my attack on the White Death's Omega base will be successful and I get closer to the source of this group and the Reaper artifact behind this damn cult.


	8. Raid

We planned and prepared our attack on the White Death's base here on Omega, all that's left is to meet back up with Nihlus and get moving into the base. I grab Valkyrie and Rapture and attach them to my back and make sure my omni-tools are fully functional before walking out fully geared once more, placing my helmet on and sealing it as I walk to the rendezvous point. I find Nihlus waiting there geared up even more than he was before but I notice his lack of a helmet. "You're late, time is sensitive and you're wasting it, you promised not to slow me down."

Even though I can tell he is just ready to get going and tired of waiting I can't help but feel annoyed with the guy, letting out a sigh before responding. "Don't get your spurs in a twist I'm making sure I'm prepared, anyway you need a helmet if you're going in there." I say recalling my first run in with them.

"Why is that? I have my shields and that should be all I need in a firefight." He says, this cocky nature of his is what got him killed in the first game and only serves to make things more difficult.

"You need a helmet seal since they are likely to use gas attacks against us once they discover us, they used it on my squad when we encountered them before, by the time you notice it you're down and weak on the ground." I explain as he listens before pulling grabbing his helmet and putting it on before sealing it not without a bit of grumbling. "Now, we're ready to get moving, did you get the layout of the base like planned?" I say as we get to a more secluded location not far from the base.

"Yeah, it's right here, I have an idea on where we'll infiltrate." He says pulling up a map of the base on his omni-tool before expanding it as I get a good look of the place. It's much bigger than the place that we attacked before, it still hurts to think about. I shake my head and clear my thoughts and focus as I take a look at the map as he explains. "We have a few locations we can come in from, but we want to hit the area least likely to be heavily fortified, which is why I say we attack here." He points to an area that looks barely connected to the rest of the base, likely a storage area for miscellaneous stuff.

"Seems like a good idea, any other location considerable for going into first?" I say as I look at the map seeing this massive base and feeling a bit impressed, it feels like this place is their secondary base of operations from the sheer scale and size of the place. I spot two more area that we can go into. "I feel like the roof above where I'm assuming is the barracks might be a good idea, take out anyone in there that are sleeping before moving on. Then there's also the full-on approach we could take, attempt to cause some panic when we infiltrate." I say though not fully sure about that plan, their indoctrination may give them a bit more resolve than they would have otherwise.

"Possible, however I feel that we should go with the slower but less risky plan here, catching them off guard is the best option, that minimizes our chances of getting injured in the initial entry." I nod and agree with him, we spend the next hour finalizing the infiltration and moving to an area outside the base far away enough to not be spotted.

We move slowly, sneaking past the outside guards guarding the perimeter of the base till we finally arrive to our infiltration point. I take the precaution of sending out a small overload to take care of any potential traps that'll trip the alarm, we get in through a small passage after I use one of my tools to cut through the metal, seems like the White Death took a page from the Geth's book when it comes to structural weakness.

Like we predicted, the spot we infiltrate is a storage room full of random junk, which mostly seems like old equipment, likely from members before they were indoctrinated. We proceed through the storage room, I call out Patriot and sneak him under the door I pull up the screen so that Nihlus can see as well, outside the door Patriot spots four enemies and I mark them on our Hud.

"You connected our systems?" Nihlus said as he looks at me, I can't see his face but I can feel his annoyance radiating from him.

"Yeah, I wanted to make sure you see what I see, and I wanted to make sure I can keep track of your vitals in case of an emergency." I say as I call Patriot back before setting up my attack. "You take the two cleaning and doing maintenance on their weapons, the place seems to be one of their crew quarters, I'll take the two that have geared up near the exit." He nods as I activate my cloak and let him get into cover, I open the door to the confusion of the all four soldiers, I then change my helmet vision to protect myself before letting out a silent flash that blinds the four, I then charge and use two omni-blades to stab through the armor of the two geared soldiers as I return the blades back. I see that the flash has started to wear off as the other two scramble for their weapons, Nihlus rushes out and takes out a pistol and takes the two unarmored soldiers out with two easy silenced shots.

"Good work" I say as we move to the door that's connected to the main corridor, the central point of the base that connects to every part of the base, unfortunately for us it's incredibly tight, just a bunch of hallways into rooms now, compared to the other base that was much more open. I let Flint out once more, he cloaks and goes under the door, there is one right outside the door and another on the other side of the hallway.

"Stay in cover, I have a plan for this." I say as I set up my plan, pulling out Polnia's sword before rushing out and quickly stabbing through the soldier's neck before aiming my arm towards the second soldier, I then activate my omni-tool which shoots out a grappling hook which attaches to the soldier as I pull back hard and pull them across the hallway rapidly before stabbing him and ending him quickly as well making sure he doesn't make a sound.

"I'm glad that damn thing worked." I say as I recall the multiple malfunctions that it had in the past it's been extremely infuriating. Nihlus comes out and looks at me for a moment, I wish I knew what the hell he was thinking. He moves forward and leads the way as I put the sword away and follow after him. We're heading towards the command center, hopefully whatever item their using for indoctrination is here.

We get outside the command center and find some heavy amounts of soldiers protecting it, at least ten with two additional Krogans, Krogans every damn time, still haven't forgotten my last encounter with them. "What's the plan?" I say through the comms as we look at the room. "It's tight, has limited cover and the cover that is there is close to them which means if it turns into a firefight, we'd have to rush in and that won't end well for us." I say considering our options.

"Other than explosions which even if placed well from both of us would likely only take out about six at most. Even then we'll have the whole base on us in no time." He says as I think for a moment before tossing two items out to him, a great little idea ripped off from the Geth.

"Press the button on top and then throw it down at a location you want to take cover at and your problem will be solved, a typically sized energy cover will come out that you can hide behind." I finish explaining, he looks at the items, looking like simple chair legs, he then prepares to attack as I call out Flint and prepare another flash. "I'll flash them, once I do throw down a shield and take cover before moving on, we can improvise from there and attempt to kill them quickly enough that the alarm isn't sounded." He nods to me as I get my abilities ready.

I send out a flash which blinds the guards, unfortunately these ones are well trained it seems and they duck down into cover instead of panicking as the Krogans go into a blind rage thrashing about. Nihlus and I rush out, he presses the button and throws down the Geth styled shield, he takes cover behind it as I take out Rapture in its shotgun form, I take two shots and the Krogan close to me luckily, he goes down and stays down after that. Flint lays down fire onto the other Krogan who has regained his sight, Nihlus fires on the Krogan as well, the two sources of firepower takes down the second Krogan.

By the time I have Flint shield me the guards regain their sight and start firing on us, Flints own shield getting peppered with rounds and threating to breach as I take aim and attempt to pull one over the railing with my grappling hook, as I activate it my omni-tool simply sparks violently which fucks up my omni-tool and burns my arm. "Damn it! Seems like that isn't working again." With one of my omni-tools screwed and Flint's shield along with his temporary shield in front of me starts to run dry I decide to rush them with Rapture.

They focus fire on me, Nihlus manages to take two out which gets a few to target him again which puts him back behind cover. I take a few wild shots which takes one out and injures another who drops their weapon. Flint is automatically called back as he takes too much damage, which leaves me vulnerable, my shields are peppered with round and shredded, I take a few shots mainly to my body. My armor resists a few but I feel two shots pierce through my sides. I manage to stab the injured one with my only omni-blade and start to use him as a shield, I look down at Nihlus who throws one of my shields to me which I throw down and deploy it before throwing my effective meat shield over the railing and take cover behind the shield to take a moment and recover.

Nihlus moves up the other side, moving cover to cover taking out an additional two as I throw out a incinerate at one which burns him to a crisp. I pant like a dog and catch my breath before shooting one more with Rapture. Nihlus then cleans up the final three as I apply a bit of medi-gel to take care of the wounds in my body. I rest for a second before getting out of cover and getting up to the door with Nihlus. "Good work... anything vital hit?" He says as he notices the three shots that punched through my armor.

"Not anything that a few minutes of attention from a medic and some rest can't fix." He nods as we get ready to breach the door, Patriot having already looked inside and saw only one person that's fully armored. We then breach the door Nihlus points his rifle at them as I also point my Rapture at them. They don't respond to us and stay on their knees; I keep my aim trained on them as I move to the right to see what they're looking at and I see a small glowing orb that can fit in the palm of your hand. My eyes widen as I quickly activate my omni-tool and send out my strongest overload hoping to fry everything the room, including the orb.

The lights go out as Nihlus turns to me confused. "What the spirits are you doing!" I know I need to move fast as I rush the person kneeling, I bash their head with my Rapture, they then grow blue and next thing I know I'm flying towards the wall rapidly, I slam into the wall which knocks the breath out me as I yell to Nihlus the best I can.

"Knock them out!" Nihlus charges the biotic and knocks them to the ground and attacks, knocking their helmet off to reveal an Asari, I manage to get up and join him as he gets put in stasis I activate my omni-taser and slam it right into her neck and setting it to full blast, she punches me multiple times with biotic enhanced punches which cracks my armor as they try to resist before finally seizing and falling unconscious.

I sit back as Nihlus takes a moment to recover from the stasis, while he does, I slip the orb into my one storage area in my armor before slowly getting up, feeling exhausted. "I'm glad she was focused and meditating, made it easier to fry the alarms otherwise, that might have been more difficult, what kind of durability did she have!" I say as they equipment around us sparks, I help Nihlus up as I hide the true reason.

"Yeah, surprised the commotion outside didn't alert her... anyway, let's get to work on placing the explosives, the rest of the base is non-essential as long as we take out the center and head of the base, we even got a potential source of information." I nod as we get to work placing explosives over the cleared areas, Nihlus quickly grabs the unconscious Asari leader after placing his explosives as we come out of the same place we infiltrated. We activate the explosives which are put on a timer as we get moving, two minutes out we hear a large explosion, predicted to take out the named places and potentially more of the base.

We go back to Nihlus's ship, he decided he trusts me enough to let me into the ship which has some impressive tech in it, though that's to be expected when the owner is a Spectre. Nihlus stores the Asari somewhere in the ship before returning, but I don't ask questions about it and simply trust he took precautions. "So, what's your plan now Nihlus?" I say as I sit in a chair exhausted and beat up, nothing broken from sheer luck and the shots I took are healing ok.

He takes off his helmet and I realize I still have mine on and proceed to take mine off as well while he responds. "Going to head back to the Citadel to interrogate the Asari and report to the council. Though I have to know, what's your plan now, since we've taken care of the base here on Omega." He says and I have to think for a moment since in truth I don't have a full answer for him.

"I would continue hunting them, but I don't think there is any more info I could really get from here, I'm likely going to return to the Citadel, after that... I'm not sure." I say since I don't have the money or resources to search out the area in galaxy Aria told me about, so all I can do is prepare and improve my equipment. "Might take on some mercenary type jobs, money is running low."

With his helmet off I can better understand what he's thinking, to a certain degree and he seems to be contemplating an idea. "Your work in the base was impressive, I can tell you're a competent and innovative soldier. Your tech is different from what I've seen before, to not acknowledge your potential would be a crime." I can't help but awkwardly stretch, not really knowing how to respond to his praise.

"I appreciate the praise, but I have a feeling you're getting to something." I say, wondering just what he has in mind.

"Well, I'll be upfront about it, before we went to attack the base I took the liberty of looking you up, Corporal Vakarian, it helped me understand who I was working with, and understand that you weren't going to shoot me in the back when we got in there." After he says this my omni-tool pings and I look at it seeing his contact info. "I want to stay in touch, I believe there's a good chance that we can work together again, if I deem a mission particularly necessary of a second member." I can't help but feel surprised and also feel the underlying feeling of a second motive.

"Better a friend than a foe in my eyes so I'll welcome the chance to be an ally of a Spectre. However, I believe I need to get going, need to grab my stuff and catch a ride to the Citadel." I say as i get up and feel my entire body throb reminding me of my exhaustion.

"I don't mind giving you a lift to the Citadel if you need one, not to mention there's a chance the council might want to speak with you." When he puts it like that it sounds less like a friendly offer and more like a demand. I sigh in response.

"Alright, sounds good allow me to just gather my things and we'll be off." I then leave the ship and gather my things from the crappy Omega apartment before returning and telling Nihlus I'm ready. We leave Omega soon after and make our way to the Citadel, the expected arrival time being around a day.

I take a long nap for most of the way before waking up only a few hours before arrival, I walk around on the ship and head to the cockpit as I see Nihlus simply relaxing in his chair, I take a seat in the second cockpit chair and relax as well. "I'm a bit curious, I was thinking about our last conversation and the entire time you spoke, I had an underlying feeling you had something in mind."

Nihlus looks at me as I speak, he lets out an exaggerated breath before responding. "I should have known you would've picked up on that, the answer is yes I do have something in mind, it's a job and if you're interested." I nod to him. "Well then, to get straight to the point it's an engineering job, it's for a prototype ship. It's a joint operation between the System Alliances and the Turian Hierachy, I'd rather not go into full details but basically, they're in the planning phase at the moment, I could put in a recommendation and let you take the job. I have a feeling you'd do some good work seeing your track record of continued research and improvement with weapons armor and tech." He says and I raise a brow while hiding my shock, I know the exact ship he's talking about, the Normandy, and he's giving me a chance to help work on it

"I have to ask why me? Feels a bit sudden to put a person you haven't known for long on an important cross species project." He gives a chuckle at that.

"Believe me it feels strange to me too, but I have a weird sense of trust in you and again I believe in your potential, and either way the project gets another member, whether you make great changes or not." He says as I have to think for a moment.

I take a breath before responding. "I think I would have to be a fool not to accept." I say with a small smirk.

The rest of the ride is uneventful as we return to the Citadel, and after I split off from Nihlus and returned to my apartment I was relieved to hear from Nihlus that the council did not ask for my presence which gave me time to focus. I empty all my stuff and set my armor into its slot taking a look at it and sighing as I consider the time it will take to repair it. I finally get to the item that's been on my mind this entire time and has had me on edge, the Reaper orb.

I take it out and place it on my workbench, I took the liberty of frying it back on Omega so I don't have to worry about it trying to indoctrinate me, deactivated parts of a dead Reaper can't indoctrinate, luckily for me this orb is deactivated. I take the next few hours inspecting it and attempt to figure out what the hell this thing is and come up fruitless. I lean back in my chair and rest for a moment thinking.

I then get a call on my omni-tool and see it's from Destia, I then answer the call. "Hey there Destia, been a while hasn't it" I say exaggerating the time since our last talk. "Have they let you in the field yet?" I say chuckling

"I suppose it has and no they haven't and before you ask yes, I'm still annoyed by it." She says with a half-smile of her own. We chat for the next hour as I can't help but have my mind focused on the future, the Reapers, the Normandy, Shepard and more and the more I think about the worse it feels. Destia seems to notice my mood progressing downwards. "Velius, what's the matter it seems like you're drifting off.

I think for a moment and nod. "It's just... I'm a bit tired." I say quickly trying to pass by with the half-truth.

"I can tell that's not all Velius, why can't you just tell me?" She pauses for a moment and I can tell from the look she has, that she has her mind focused on something as well. "You do this so often... you're always preparing and worried about the future and you never tell me why, it feels as if you're holding back a mountain of secrets." She says and I can't help but know it's the truth, from my reincarnation to my knowledge of the future there is so much that I can't tell her.

"I'm sorry, not meaning to worry you, I know that I'm holding some things back from you but I promise... it's for the better." I look at her again an she seems pained at my words.

"I do not know your reasons that you hold these mysterious secrets so tightly, all I know that it has become so difficult to simply watch and wonder as you prepare and prepare, all the while I can't do a thing." I flinch at her words; I truly hadn't considered how hard it might be for a person to be stuck constantly in the dark about a person they care for. It makes it so much worse knowing I can't tell her anything. I hold my head up with my hand feeling all the more stressed about my situation as I consider an option that I didn't want to think about.

"I know it's been difficult and I'm sorry that i can't tell you anything... I don't want this to make things any worse for you. Perhaps it'd be better if we broke things off." I tense up as I say those words before continuing seeing her simply listening. "I'll be frank, nothing about my secrets will change, if I'm being honest. I understand your pain and maybe, this is the best option for us, things will only get worse from here." I say and I feel as if my heart is being squeezed.

She looks sadly at me before nodding. "Yes, I think this is the best choice for us... I'm sorry but I have to go, I need to rest for tomorrow, we have a mission." She says before the call cuts out. I lay back in my chair and take a breath, feeling like I've been punched repeatedly in the stomach all the while having to remind myself that this is for the best.

I went to bed soon after and woke up the next day, still nothing about the Normandy job from Nihlus, I put the Reaper orb in a hidden compartment before heading out needing to clear my head, walking to the Presidium and simply taking in the sights, collecting my thoughts as it feels like I'm heading into a second chapter of my life here. I later walk into the Wards getting more materials and items needed to craft and research, taking another chunk out of my account and leaving me at 2,000 credits.

I get back home and get an idea, I can't hunt down the White Death with my current position but I know someone who can look around, that I can trust with my life. I call Tib and hope for an answer, I can't help but smile as he answers. "Hey! Tib how are you man."

He chuckles before responding. "I'm doing just fine, the team here is only getting better." He says which is good news to me. "I've also rose in the ranks in the past month, I'm a Sergeant now." I smile at the news proud of my friend. I then make sure the call is not tracked or being listened in to.

"That's great to hear Tib, and I wish this was a simple friendly call but it's not, I have some information about the White Death." His face gets more serious as I mention them, his hatred for them being just as big as before but not as blind as before.

"I'm listening. I'm assuming you're calling me since I can do something to assist?" He says which I nod to before responding as I pull up a map of the galaxy on the console in my apartment. I then point to the Artemis Tau and Voyager Cluster before speaking." Between these two points is their main base of operations, meaning if we can locate it, we can finally take them out, what I need you to do is to see if you can locate the planet it's on." I say before getting rid of the map and focusing my attention on Tib.

"I see basically on the edge of the galaxy making getting to them just as dangerous as fighting them." He says as I can see the gears working in his head.

"Be careful of course and make sure to focus on your assignments, but if you can try to locate them, but I have to make something very clear." I say as I have to take an extra layer of precaution. "Do not, under any circumstance try to attack the base, that will be my job if you find it, trust me on this since it would be difficult for me to explain further." I can see the confusion on his face but I simply stay silent and wait for him to respond.

"I see, I don't understand, but I trust you Vel, all I ask is when you do take action, tell me first, I don't need you disappearing on me in the case that you fail." He says as I sigh and nod. After that discussion we talk and continue catching up, having new objectives now in mind as he tells me about his time that has grown to a decent size of eight soldiers including him. After the call I get to work and repair my armor before looking at my equipment, knowing what I need to improve. I think about all my systems and take to understanding that my armor and tech simply are going to have a harder time holding and running everything, making my cooldowns longer. It puts Mass Effect's weight system into a bit of perspective, at least until I get an idea.

I start working on programming a VI, having plenty of knowledge and resources to develop one, then as I work on programming the VI meant to improve my systems my mind drifts to another end of the spectrum. A potentially very dangerous one, and very illegal one. At this point I'm looking at any way that will give me an edge in battle. I stop working for a moment and consider my options. AI, in my first life and in this one AI is seen as a heavy danger and a threat to the lives of people and organics, but we also see how it can be allied with, Legion and Edi for example. I feel crazy for even considering this, I know I can do it, especially with my knowledge from the games, but the question is... should I?

I sigh and feel stressed considering my options, my brain feels overloaded. I can't take thinking about it anymore tonight; I'll sleep on it and consider the benefits and dangers. I get dressed into sleepwear and get into bed thinking about everything that has happened in the span of a few months and think about what will happen, Eden Prime and Saren can't be avoided but the question is, can I really change things or am I going to be caught in the flow of time and forced along the path that I've seen so many times.

**A/N: Hello and thank you for reading, I ****sincerely hope you have enjoyed the story and look forward to more. I apologize that this chapter took so long to come out, and I will do my best to make the next one come out much sooner. Once again I thank everyone for reading this little mess of mine especially with it being my first story on this site. If you like the story, have a criticism or just had something you liked, comment it! It makes very happy to see people comment and if anyone has a confusion or question etc about the story I guarantee I'll respond. That's all for now, see you all in the next chapter!**


	9. Destruction

I suddenly fall out of my bed, not of my own volition as I wake up quickly noticing a sword in my bed as I see an armored-up woman, likely human from the design, currently defenseless as she charges me. I get no time to register the situation other than the fact as I'm under attack, she flips and moves around like she's a damn ninja and I have to keep dodging and moving to avoid getting my neck sliced.

In the commotion of dodging this woman while she attacks, I manage to grab one of my omni-tools and activate the omni-blade just in time to block a sword slash. I use the moment to grab my second omni-tool and attach it, now at least a bit better suited. Sending out Flint who starts firing at her hitting her as I see a purple barrier in the dark room, biotics. I wonder why she hasn't used biotics on me, suddenly I she aims her hand at me and blasts me, in my attempt to dodge she hits me in the arm, which I then realize I can no longer feel. Taking a split second to look I see my arm leaking a good deal of blood. "Shit! Who the hell are you!" She then cloaks and I run out a scan for thermal energy on my omni-tool and see her rush for me, I wait for a moment and put my arms together which then activates a massive shield that covers my full body before slamming the shield right into her knocking her to the ground and deactivating her cloak as my omni-tools are overloaded and spark from the excessive power use.

I charge down and pin her to the ground, grasping her wrist that holds her blade, she twists her wrist out of my grip and manages to slash my side as I slam my fist into her helmet which cracks it and disorients her as I continue, punching her helmet rapidly before breaking it, I then take my sharp talons and slam them into her throat slicing through and seeing her try to raise her sword again before her hand falls limp and lets go as she stops moving. Only then do I take my talons out feeling very thankful once again that I was born a Turian. Panting and catching my breath as I drag myself over to an emergency medkit and applying medi-gel to my wounds.

Wincing as I apply it to my side wound and understanding that it's a semi deep slash that she med gel should be able to take care of. I slowly move over to a light switch and turn it on to get a better look at my assailant. The lights turn on and I'm shocked to see who it is, a well-known white, black and orange outfit, Cerberus! When that name comes to mind, I can feel my anger rise and rise. One of my most hated organizations of all time. I look at the impressive and advanced armor and decide to take it and store it with my armor. The rest of the day is spent calling C-Sec, answering questions and recovering while thinking about how lucky I was that the first stab missed me when I rolled over in bed.

I return home from the hospital and start working on my equipment, already having cleaned up the mess in my apartment. I pull out the phantom's armor and begin inspecting it, most interested in the blaster on the right gauntlet, reminding me of Iron Man. Well he was always one of my favorites. I deconstruct the gauntlet and record the schematic in some notes, the main takeaway being the beams it can shoot out which might help me further figure out how to make energy type weapons. I look at the time and can't help but sigh, I nearly got too invested in my equipment and missed the first day that I'm supposed to go and start my work on the Normandy. Though right now I'm thinking it's likely in its planning phase. I get dressed in my favorite hoodie and pants and get going to the meeting area in the Presidium.

I arrive and walk into the meeting room, seeing Nihlus, another Turian and a Human, the last two who seem to be yelling at each other. "I'm telling you Tatum the drive core is unstable, not only is it going to overheat and fail but also it's going to be impossible to control, the first day you send this thing out it's going to collapse and explode the whole vessel!"

Well he's not completely wrong, those were concerns but it turned out well in the games, the core was able to handle storing the ship's heat well. Nihlus looks frustrated and rubs his face before noticing I arrived. The Turian responds as I walk over. "For the last time Zander, I'm the one who designed the core, these problems you speak of won't be of concern when we build the ship!" He slams his fist onto the table as I give a hard cough to let them know I'm here. The Turian, Tatum I think he was called, speaks first. "Oh, hello you must be the one Nihlus was talking about, nice to meet you I'm Octavio Tatum, one of the head designers of the project." He says changing his tune a little.

The Human grumbles before speaking as well. "I'm Elli Zander, I'm the second head of this project, I'll be commanding the ship after it is finished, like he said Nihlus already gave us an idea about you, he's saying you can contribute and improve the designs we have. Currently we are inclined to trust a Spectre on his word." His subtle hint of doubt doesn't escape me.

"Well you have both heard of me already so I'll go ahead and fully introduce myself. I'm Velius Vakarian." Now would you two would be kind enough to get me up to speed on what this project is?" I say as they pull up the current blueprints for the ship.

"The project that we are working on is a joint project between Humans and Turians, hence why you see Zander here." He pauses for a moment before moving the blueprints to focus on the drive core. "You see the big part of the project is the stealth system that was previously thought to be impossible, however with this core design it becomes possible." I nod and look over the blueprints, as I do, I can see that the design is very primitive compared to the Normandy we know, though given how long it'll be before fully commissioned I'm not surprised.

"The biggest problem I see is the size of the drive core and how weak the vessel itself is, it seems like it could be taken down with one good shot from a decent sized ship." I want to try and introduce these ideas, if I can enhance the design of the Normandy, I might be able to prevent Shepard from dying.

Zander is the first to respond. "I agree with the size of the drive core being a problem, but the entire point of this ship is stealth, armor and shields aren't the priority." He says, and I can tell that he is happy I brought up the core size.

"That's true, but I believe the ship should be able to at the least take a hit in the event that the ship is spotted." I say as I reinforce my point, but I should go ahead and gain favor with the two heads of the project, otherwise they might just block me out. "But at the moment I feel we should address the size of the core and ship." They both nod at my statement.

After that small discussion the three of us drew up plans and ideas on what to do, I did my best to contribute by using my knowledge of the finished Normandy and the Normandy SR-2. The meeting lasted about 5 hours before we ended it. I got home and checked the time, 3:00pm I didn't even realize how early it was when I got there. I settle in and get to work, finishing up my research on the Phantom's suit mainly her cloak and hand blast. I can probably use both of them, the cloak alone increases my cloak time to multiple minutes, plenty of time before needing a cooldown.

I don't bother to pull out the Reaper artifact, I simply can't crack it right now, it's completely foreign and I feel like I would need to cross reference it with another Reaper's parts, so I decide to get to work on my riskiest project yet, my AI.

_**July 2174 **_

Time passes by very quickly, faster than we even realize, today I'm attending Garrus's graduation, and I can't help but feel equally proud and disappointed. I'm proud of my brother for graduating boot camp, but I feel disappointed in myself for not spending more time with him before he did. I've been so focused on getting more prepared and getting more and better equipment that I neglected someone I'm trying to protect.

Currently my father is putting on Garrus's colony markings, looking just like our father and me. My father has been upset with me for a while now, with a mix of quitting the military so quickly and effectively becoming a merc, he isn't happy with me to say the least. Lucky for me, today isn't about him, I start walking to Garrus, surprising him from behind with a pat on the back before giving him a quick tight hug. Great job Garrus! I knew boot camp wouldn't be a problem for you. You look great now that you got your markings!" I say excitedly as he smiles back at me.

"Thanks Velius, I appreciate the support." He says as he makes a smug look, I raise my brow in response. "I easily overtake you in the looks department now." There's the Garrus we know from the games, and I can't help but smile, it feels good to wind down and see my brother again.

I look up and see our father staring me down, I don't wish to speak to him, the guy has a clear tone of disappointment when he speaks to me. I decide that I should wrap things up and let Garrus get going. "Yeah, yeah whatever you say man, just be careful in the future, I don't want to hear that you ate a sniper shot to the face." I say as I start walking away, saying one last thing to him before I leave. "Hey! Make sure to stay in touch as well Garrus!" He nods to me before eventually being sent to his new unit.

It's the next day and I stretch a bit as I just returned from working with the team on the Normandy, the drive core has been finalized and the rest of the ship is being designed, they're predicting a long build time due to the experimental core and technology, the next meeting I'll be able to introduce Silaris heavy ship armor. I decide to introduce this over the CBT shielding due to the fact that our budget isn't big enough for both, and because the armor is what will hopefully protect from the future Collector ship attack.

I take a deep breath as I look at my account and see about 50,000 credits in and sighing at the sight. I made some changes to my living situation over five years, I moved out of that mediocre apartment and bought a well priced Frigate that I commissioned and recently moved into, it cost me 250,000 credits. It was worth it though, I got more privacy and honestly more room than before. It's not SR-2 size or anything but I'd like to say it's big enough to fit a bedroom, main deck and garage area. The last area being the place I spend most of my days in, and now that I have more space and a dedicated area to research and building I'm happy to say my work has progressed much quicker.

The biggest thing that I've achieved is the AI I have been developing, however I can't lie and say I'm not scared to activate it, god knows that I could end up creating another rogue AI. I look at the program and lie back in my chair, I'd like to say that this AI is kept an even tighter secret than my broken Reaper artifact. I know the risk and I know what can happen, but I need all the help I can get and an AI is a huge step up if you're able to ally with one. With thousands of thoughts running through my brain, I activate the program and watch it run, waiting for the AI to fully come alive, it's only been semi-conscious before, basically a VI, but now it should be like EDI, if not better.

The amount of power it takes to run the program nearly blows out the power in my equipment, the program then resets before coming back on and becoming a simple black screen, suddenly I see a bit of text appear on the screen. I take a deep breath as it reads out a simple. "Hello?"

"Hello there, I suppose all I can say is welcome to life!" I say a bit excitedly, happy the program worked, I then move and connect the mic system to the interface allowing the AI to speak. "Go ahead and attempt to speak, I gave you a few voice programs to choose from and I connected a mic to your system so I can hear you.

There's nothing for a moment before it responds. "Hello there, who are you? Who am I for that matter." It says in a distinctly male voice. I wait a moment before responding.

"My name is Velius Vakarian, as for who you are, neither of us know yet, we haven't decided on a name for you yet." I say trying to get straight to the point. "I wanted your help before giving you a name, I wanted you to have a choice."

He starts to mess with the interface more, creating a face, with eyes, a nose and a mouth, telling me he's starting to discover and do more things with his interface. "I see, do you have any suggestions Velius? I am still new to this world, so I cannot create a name yet from my limited database."

I had some ideas beforehand so I threw out my favorite one. "How about Nex, short for Nexus. One of your biggest functions is to analyze, collect and create new data." I say as I also mention some of his functions, which I'm sure he knows already.

He doesn't respond for a moment before flashing a green checkmark on screen. "Nex is a suitable name, I will proceed with it. Now then will you tell me why you created me? While I can gain an idea from what has been given to me in my database, the creator's words can confirm." He asks me and I take a breath before responding.

"Truely, I made you because I need help, and an ally. You have incredible capabilities and I want you to be my ally. I won't force you to help me however, you are free to not help me, I'd rather you made the choice to assist me." I finish my explanation as I stare at the interface waiting for a response.

"I understand, I have been gathering information since I was turned on, from what I have gathered it seems you don't want to force me into service like the Quarians did to the Geth." He pauses for a moment seemingly making a decision. "I do not currently see an issue from working with you, I also see that working together can result in benefits for the both of us, so yes, I accept."

I can't help but smirk as he accepts it, happy that things have gone well so far. "I look forward to working with you." I say before getting up, and pulling my now repaired armor out of the locker and attaching it to a stand to keep it upright as I put my goggles on, a new pair of black and red colored goggles that protects my eyes and helps me keep track of what I'm doing, pulling up a unique HUD. "Let's get started by introducing you to the armor I use, it's also the place I'll link you to whenever I leave the ship, that way you can manage my systems."

I go ahead and link him so he can look into the armor, he analyzes the armor before speaking again. "The armor is well made, quite advanced compared to other military grade equipment, however it's one weakness is its power output, your systems are going to be easily overloaded, I also took the liberty of analyzing your omni-tools and they have the same issue. Luckily for you I can help manage the systems and increase the limit of your equipment and prevent overloading, as long as I'm in the system of course." Nex explains and I get excited, the power limit has been a problem for a while, having a solution feels amazing. "However we'll need to do some testing after I finish the upgrades and we'll need materials in order to modify and enhance your equipment." I nod in response and leave the ship, having Nex send me a list of materials I need to my omni-tool.

The next month was spent improving my armor, increasing Nex's database and getting things ready for field training. I have the next four days off from Normandy work and I've already introduced the special armor, I wasn't even aware the Asari haven't invented it yet, I guess my assumption that it was available in ME1 was wrong.

I'm actually traveling to Omega again, I want to return to the place and see what I can discover, mostly I want to look through the area of the destroyed White Death base. We soon arrive and I'm fully equipped, this time with Nex inside the armor and taking care of my systems while watching my vitals. He even implemented a recovery system so that he can take care of my injuries when they happen and stop them from slowing me down too much.

I walk onto Omega, fortune favors me and I don't have to deal with some dumb Omega punk trying to get credits out of me. I walk into Blue Suns territory and see the remains of the base, walking through it. "Nex can you scan everything as I walk through, though I'm sure over the past five years it's been picked clean of stuff." I continue looking around inside as I look at the control room once more. I never got anymore info about the leader of this base other than the fact that she didn't last long on the Citadel and only a week after she got there, she was killed, likely by members of the White Death.

I suddenly hear a ding as Nex scans the main terminal and I look at it. "I have spotted signs of power in this terminal. I can scan for info and attempt to find anything useful." I nod and give him the go ahead as I continue to look around, suddenly the boosts in my armor send me up as I hit the ceiling.

"Nex what the hell!" I yell out and shake my head as I get back up, looking at the spot where I was and seeing a sniper shot.

"Enemy located, marking on HUD, I recommend you pursue them immediately." He says I see them marked, and still within my sensor range, wondering why they weren't noticed before. I see them take off as they notice I have recovered, charging after them as I see them activate a cloak. I growl out in anger as I quickly work my omni-tool.

"Nex focus on sensors and detect cloaks." I say as I look around on alert, not sure if they continued running or are lining up a shot.

"Unable to locate the enemy, the cloak is likely too advanced for our sensors." I get frantic, taking a chance with a mass overload which no longer causes problems for my systems, I see a flicker on a ladder of a warehouse building. I take out Valkyrie and take a quick shot, that only manages to hit their shields, but is still enough for me to fully locate them.

"There you are, you bastard." I say as move quickly and using my omni-shield to tank a sniper shot from them, and before they can get away I use my omni-hook and latch onto them before pulling down hard, they hold onto the ladder attempting to stop me and detach the hook but end up finally falling after I put in a last bit of effort. I pull out Rapture in the shotgun form and point it towards their face.

I finally got a good look at the...Quarian, that's unexpected. She let go of the sniper she had and held her hands up in surrender, I called out Flint and gave Nex an order. "Keep Flint locked on her, if she does anything, fire immediately." I slowly put my Rapture away, I then use the rope of the omni-hool to lock her hands behind her back as I remove the pistol from her hip and pull her up onto her feet. The entire time she remains silent which surprises me and worries me.

I take her onto my ship and keep her locked and secure, making sure she can't get out, all the while keeping Flint ready to fire. I finally sit down in front of her, still fully armored and ready to fight. "I'll get straight to the point, who are you and why did you attempt to kill me." I say as I look at her and her attire. It clearly shows that she isn't simply on her pilgrimage, her suit is clearly armored and ready to fight along with a cloak and hood that covers basically her whole body.

She remains silent after the question so I just continue with the questions. "Are you on your pilgrimage?" I pause for a moment after asking her that, once again she doesn't respond, I start to get annoyed as I ask her one more question. "Are you working with the White Death?"

She actually moves a little at that question and responds. "What are you talking about, why would I try to kill you if I was with your group you bosh'tet." I can't help but feel confused at her response.

"What makes you think I am anything that symbolizes allies with the White Death?" I say as I realize this might all be a nearly very costly mistake.

"Your armor, it's the same as theirs, advanced, well made, pure black and you were in the ruin's of their base on Omega, recovering lost intel." I listened and understood how she came to that conclusion but still pissed off.

"Well I understand what you're saying, however I'm not part of them, I'm actually one of the people who helped destroy the base, I'm investigating them more to see if there are any remnants." I then get closer as I poke her helmet roughly. "But if you thought I was one of them why would you not capture them, spirits you should have at least done something to make sure you weren't shooting an innocent person!" I say ranting at her before sitting back in my chair

"I don't really trust you, but I believe that you aren't with them, you would have killed me by now if you were, so in that case I apologize for attempting to shoot your head off." She says, but part of me feels that the apology is a bit half assed. Not to mention the sass in her voice.

"Whatever, mind telling me who you are, or what you were doing at the base?" I say as I decide to let her hands free, recalling the omni-hook as she rubs her wrists that were bound. I feel safe enough now that she can be free, I still have her omni-tools and weapons.

"Zora'Xolan" She says plain and simple as I notice no ship after her name like Tali's nar Rayya or vas Normandy.

"No birth or service ship? That's a bit strange for a Quarian." I say out loud by accident, not meaning to mention that.

"Knowing that Quarians have their birth and service ships in their name is strange for a Turian." She says and I let out an exasperated sigh, this one likes her sarcasm or is it mockery, sometimes I can't tell.

"Yeah, I've done some research on other species' cultures, is that a crime?" I say as I look at her helmet, just like Tali I can see her glowing eyes, and I feel like I'm simply amusing her. She shrugs at my question and I can only groan from annoyance. "Whatever, as far as I can see you aren't threatening me anymore and you seem to hate them as much as I do." I get up and throw her sniper, pistol, knife and omni-tool to her letting her have all of her equipment back. "You're free to go, just make sure you know who the hell you're shooting at in the future." I say as I have Nex open the ship's exit for her, she walks to the exit with her stuff before stopping at the exit.

"You never told me your name, quite rude don't you think? Especially since I told you mine." I growl in annoyance, this woman's sassy attitude is getting on my nerves. I sit down at my workbench and don't bother to look at her.

"Velius Vakarian, spread my name around on Omega and I'll hunt you down myself." I say and glare at her to put emphasis on my threat. This seems to do nothing as I can see her eyes roll at the threat.

"Whatever, I got nothing to gain from doing that in the first place, just wanted to know in case we meet again in the future little Vel." She quickly leaves after that. Dammit that woman knows how to push my buttons. I start to have Nex analyze the little info we extracted. I also decide to go ahead and start flying back to the Citadel, as I do, Nex pops up and asks a question.

"Sir, why did you not question her further, what she knows, she seems like she might have had useful intel." I put the ship on autopilot understanding his question.

"I didn't bother asking her any more questions, she clearly wasn't willing to share all too much and I'm not interrogating her if she isn't an enemy. She may be a bitch but she's not an enemy." Nex accepts the answer and goes quiet. I relax for now, taking off my armor and settling down. The trip is bound to take a few hours.

_**Five hours later**_

I arrive at the Citadel and dock the ship and don't bother leaving the ship. The info that we got from the destruction of the base was minimal at best, weapon and tech research. All of which I already knew and it wasn't even that advanced. I decided to pull something that stumped me for so long, the Reaper artifact, I put it on the workbench. "Nex, can you do a thorough scan of this artifact, it's leftover from the Reapers." The scan doesn't start immediately and I can feel a question from Nex. "Oh, right I'm sorry Nex I never told you what the Reapers are did I?" I say as he starts to scan the artifact.

"No you did not sir, will you explain while I commence the scan? He says as I can see him scanning over the artifact.

"The Reapers are a machine race of synthetic-organic ships, they hibernate in the dark space and they return to the Galaxy every 50,000 years in order to harvest and destroy all technologically advanced life, they do this in a cycle. They do this in a horrible effort to preserve organics, deeming organics a danger to themselves once they reach a certain level of technology." I explain the best I can to Nex, wondering what he thinks of the Reapers.

"I understand, the Reapers have taken their original programming and morphed it into a new course of action, despite having the same objective. I understand their way of thinking, from my readings and gathered data, organics are destined to stay in an infinite cycle of war with each other, destroying themselves in many cases, the Krogan are an example of this." I start to feel a bit of worry in my body as Nex seems to like the plan the Reapers have.

"Do you think what they do is the best course of action?" I ask him, wondering if I just created a new problem for myself.

"No, while it is a course of action, for preserving organic species it is flawed, I do not know the best course of action that would ensure the survival of organics, however I do not believe the Reapers are correct, perhaps a balance and partnership between synthetics and organics would be best." He says as he continues to scan, ending his explanation. What he says sounds a lot like the Synthesis ending, I don't think that's the best option, but it doesn't matter, if I can change the course of events in this universe, I won't have to choose between those three horrible choices.

"Sir I have finished the scan, my conclusion is I believe that it is a power source of some kind, it seems to generate and store power, it seems to utilize element zero as a starting source, likely replicating the properties in order to power whatever the power core goes to. The downside seems to be it requires a cooldown/recharging time." My eyes go wide at his explanation, no wonder I couldn't figure it out with just my knowledge, the power of an AI with a galaxy wide database is incredible.

"Do you think it's possible we can replicate it, reutilize it in our equipment?" I ask as I inspect the incredible piece of tech. Wondering just what we can do with it.

"Perhaps, the intervals are nearly completely fried and the core itself is inactive, but using our current database and level of technology it is possible. If we were to be successful our equipment effectiveness and power would at the minimum be doubled. However the replication process will take years, if it's even thesiable." I put the artifact down and think for a moment.

"Regardless of the cost, time, resources etc. I believe that replicating this technology is the most important thing, if we can truly improve our weapons, boost ourselves further and ascend to a higher level of technology, that alone can surprise the Reapers, and if we can surprise them we can make them fear us." I think about how Shepard alone in the games scared the Reapers and surprised them, if we boost our level to be even closer to the Reapers then it's worth it.

"Understood sir, let's get started right away then shall we?" I nod as I let him make a plan, I think more about the future, I get up and walk to the cockpit and look out the windows, out into space and smirking as I do, thinking about the Reapers currently hibernating in dark space. Get ready you bastards, I'm coming and I'm going to change everything. There is only going to be one ending for this story, and that is with your destruction.


	10. AN

**(This Note will be deleted once the actual Chapter 10 is posted)**

**Hey everyone, unfortunately for me to say this isn't chapter 10. This is simply an update on the current situation with this story and me, so if you aren't interested you are free to go. **

**It's been about two months since the last chapter and right now I would consider this story on a hiatus of some type for now. I have been busy with work and with the current pain of online and not online school and overall things have been problematic and I'm sure a good number of you have been facing the same issues of not another type. Painfully enough this isn't the only or the biggest issue. Early in November my phone, which I kept 100% of this story's stuff on, broke completely leaving all of my data on the phone completely unable to access. Including 75% of chapter 10. The timeline, notes, character info, everything is gone. I've been trying to redo everything and rewrite all of my notes and the chapter i had ready but it's been a struggle and so incredibly frustrating, i can't even really find the motivation to do it anymore. **

**I'm sorry for letting the people who do enjoy this story down and I promise you this isn't the end. But for now I simply can't do it. I hope to continue this story one way or another in December or January, so try to look forward to that. You're still free to leave a comment, pm me or do anything you want, but for now farewell and once again I'm sorry for this.**


End file.
